NOV  1  1913 


BR  121  .D5  1913 
Dickinson,  Charles  Henry, 

1857-  i 

The  Christian  reconstructio 

of  modern  life 


THE  CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 
OF  MODERN  LIFE 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW    YORK    •    BOSTON    •    CHICAGO    •    DALLAS 
ATLANTA    •    SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON    •  BOMBAY   •  CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


V 


x^'* 


NOV   1  1913 


THE 


CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 
OF  MODERN  LIFE 


BY       / 
CHARLES  HENRY  DICKINSON 


"^tva  fork 

THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

1913 

All  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  1913, 

By  the  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  September,  1913- 


tlTo  ^^  WSiift 


PREFACE 

The  object  of  this  book  is  the  spiritualizing  of 
the  social  passion.  The  undertaking  has  grown 
from  the  conviction  that  this  mightiest  force  of  our 
time  can  attain  its  reconstructive  purpose  only  as 
it  is  conscious  of  its  own  implicit  spiritual  quahty, 
and  becomes  The  Christian  Reconstruction  of  Modern 
Life. 

Experienced  readers  will  perceive  my  obligations 
to  prominent  scholars  and  thinkers.  Lest  the  rela- 
tively inexperienced  should  suppose  that  positions 
famihar  to  progressive  scholarship  are  eccentricities 
of  the  author,  special  obHgation  is  acknowledged  to 
Eucken  and  Bergson,  and  to  pragmatism  in  the  ideal 
and  spiritual  apprehension  learned,  however  imper- 
fectly, from  the  lips  of  its  most  acute  interpreter, 
John  Edward  Russell,  beloved  teacher,  revered  friend. 
The  conceptions  concerning  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ments are  those  derived  from  the  reverently  fearless 
scholarship  of  which  the  regnant  example  is  Heinrich 
Julius  Holtzmann:  upon  his  new  grave  Christian 
learning  has  laid  its  wreath  of  immortelle  and  passion 
flower.    To  the  leaders  of  the  brotherhood  and  sister- 


viii  PREFACE 

hood  of  the  social  passion  who  shall  compute  the  in- 
debtedness of  us  all! 

I  trust  the  book  will  reach  those  to  whom  its  pur- 
pose is  most  congenial:  not  scholars  alone,  as  the 
studious  of  my  own  vocation,  but  also  the  like  of 
those  whose  eager  faces  have  kindled  the  inspiration 
of  the  preacher's  message.  Among  these  are  ilUterate 
men  and  women,  to  whom  dreary  shibboleths  would 
have  meant  nothing,  being  nothing,  but  to  whom  the 
spiritual  depths  of  the  social  Gospel  were  translucent; 
and  discipHned  minds,  whose  faith,  long  outraged  by 
traditionalism,  acknowledged  a  Christianity  given 
back  to  thought  and  heart  and  life;  and  flaming  eyes 
of  youth  in  glad  amazement  at  what  Jesus  would  have 
their  lives  be.  It  is  a  cause  of  regret  that  in  a  few 
passages  it  has  been  necessary  to  employ  allusions 
not  familiar  to  all,  in  order  to  avoid  wearisome  epi- 
sodes that  would  be  much  more  confusing.  Yet  even 
in  these  infrequent  paragraphs  regard  has  been  kept 
for  those  who  entreated,  "Write  the  spiritualizing 
of  the  social  Gospel  in  words  not  too  hard  for  us." 
Not  by  technical  learning  are  vitalities  understood, 
but  by  breadth  of  interest,  and  intensity  of  purpose, 
and  enthusiasm  of  aspiring  service. 

Calhoun,  Alabama, 
June  14,  1913. 


CONTENTS 

PART  I 

The  Radical  Division  in  Modern  Life 

Chapter 

I.  The  Two  Inheritances 3 

II.  The  Two  Obligations 14 

III.  The  Source  of  Our  Civilization 25 

IV.  Modern  Hellenism 38 

V.  The  Rights  of  Our  Civilization  as  against  Christianity  58 
VI.  The  Right  of  Christianity  as  against  Our  Civilization     74 

PART  II 

Jesus  and  Modern  Life 

I.  The  Two  World-Conquests 107 

II.  The  Historic  Realization  of  the  Semitic  Principle.  .  125 

III.  The  Separateness  of  Jesus  from  Aryan  Civilization  162 

IV.  The  Task  of  Civilization 185 

V.  The  Task  of  Jesus 214 

VI.  Jesus'  Accomplishment  of  His  Task.  . 242 

VII.  The  Reconstructive  Energies 277 

VIII.  The  Spiritualizing  of  the  Social  Passion 291 

Index 317 


PART  1 
THE  RADICAL  DIVISION  IN  MODERN  LIFE 


THE 

CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

OF  MODERN   LIFE 

CHAPTER  I 

THE   TWO   INHERITANCES 

The  modern  world's  divergences  from  the  Christian 
religion  are  results  of  an  original  and  fundamental 
difference  between  our  civilization  and  Christianity. 
The  reason  of  these  estrangements  cannot  be  that 
science  has  opened  a  new  universe,  unknown  to  the 
ages  of  faith,  and  that  processes  of  thought  and  tests 
of  reality  have  suffered  change.  Nor  are  radical 
departures  from  our  religious  consciousness  caused 
by  the  awakening  of  new  personal  and  social  interests, 
and  by  the  establishment  of  different  standards  of 
value  from  those  which  directed  unsophisticated 
desires  to  their  celestial  goal;  for  belief  in  the  infinite 
is  not  unfavorably  influenced  by  the  enlarging  knowl- 
edge of  the  finite,  and  life  in  God  is  not  hostile  to 
normal  unfoldings  of  thought  and  action  in  any 
realm. 

3 


4  THE  CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

But  the  patent  separations  express  the  unyielding 
fact  that  Christianity  is  not  a  development  of  the 
civilization  which  is  our  Hellenic  inheritance,  but 
came  to  it  from  without.  And  this  fact  is  not  an 
historic  accident,  but  the  manifestation  of  a  difference 
between  our  religion  and  our  civilization  for  which 
there  is  no  superficial  synthesis.  The  agreeable 
phrase,  Christian  civilization,  juxtaposes  terms  un- 
fused.  Civilization  is  not  Christian  by  virtue  of  ac- 
knowledging contributions,  however  great,  from  Chris- 
tianity and  its  revered  founder,  and  least  of  all  can 
Christianity  pronounce  it  such  unless  it  has  accepted 
the  universal  dominance  of  the  fundamental  Christian 
principle.  The  Semitic  Jesus  has  no  original  part  in 
the  Hellenic  culture,  which,  transforming  the  contri- 
butions of  previous  civilizations,  and  absorbing  in 
its  progress  every  potency  it  encounters  except  His, 
is  to-day  unprecedentedly  stimulated  by  forces  new, 
but  most  germane  to  its  developments.  Ever  more 
dissonant  to  its  conquering  march  through  the  world 
and  the  times,  sounds  His  voice,  never  to  be  silenced : 
Change  your  estimates,  desires,  purposes,  for  the 
kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand. 

Beside  our  religious  and  our  cultural  inheritance, 
there  are  our  racial  descents,  various,  uncertain.  But 
these  became  significant  only  when  our  religion  or 


THE  TWO  INHERITANCES  5 

our  civilization  found  tliem  material  to  work  upon, 
disposition  to  mould.  We  express  Athens  and  Galilee 
according  to  our  heredity,  but  of  Athens  and  Galilee 
we  are  expressions. 

The  opposite  natures  of  these  forces  were  detected 
from  the  beginning  of  their  contact  with  one  another, 
by  noblest  representatives  of  the  classic  culture.  The 
ethical  statesmanship  of  Aurelius  and  the  spiritual 
aspiration  of  Plotinus  opposed  Christianity  as  an 
unassimilable  intrusion.  To  them  especially  the 
Christ  is  he  who  casts  upon  the  earth  the  sword  of 
destruction  against  every  purpose  but  his  own. 
The  victory  of  the  Galilean  seemed  to  defeat  the 
obligation  of  the  Hellenic-Roman  civilization  to  renew 
itself  from  its  sources,  for  the  transforming  of  new 
peoples  and  the  reconstruction  of  ancient  nations. 
The  adoption  of  Christianity  was  to  them  the  be- 
trayal of  humanity;  as  it  always  is,  in  very  truth,  for 
any  other  aim  than  Jesus'  transcendent  ideal. 

Every  rebirth  of  our  civilization  has  involved 
strained  relations  with  Christian  beliefs,  sentiments, 
institutions,  and  aims.  FamiHar  instances  are  the 
medieval  anticipation  of  the  renaissance,  the  renais- 
sance itself,  the  era  of  the  enlightenment,  the  move- 
ments which  we  connect  with  the  French  revolution, 
the  awakening  of  any  young  soul  to  the  world  and  life 


6  THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

in  it.  It  is  not  merely  that  at  such  times  certain 
ecclesiastical  tyrannies  must  be  shaken  off  and  super- 
stitions cleared  away,  and  that  new  arrangements 
have  to  be  concerted  between  the  expanded  secular 
life  and  the  faith  which  it  revises;  but  the  cleavage 
appears  between  our  two  inheritances.  And  this 
notwithstanding  faith's  advantage  from  the  advance 
of  culture,  and  civilization's  gain  from  the  ener- 
gizings  of  faith.  For  the  enlivening  of  any  element  in 
man's  nature  stimulates  the  whole.  The  enfranchise- 
ment of  any  power,  with  its  openings  of  new  realms, 
necessitates  ethical  interests  and  problems,  which, 
by  an  unfailing  historic  law,  become  conscious  of 
their  spiritual  implications.  In  epochs  of  secular 
advance  religious  interests  need  not  wait  the  pendu- 
lum's backward  swing.  The  inevitable  sequence  of 
an  age  of  idealism  from  a  period  of  realism  is  not  by 
the  force  of  reaction,  however  exclusive  may  have 
appeared  the  dominance  of  the  secular.  If  in  our  own 
time  rehgion  seems  covered,  it  Hes  deep.  Therefore 
the  futility  of  stimulating  the  rehgious  by  repressing 
the  secular.  It  is  no  less  evident  that  upheavals  of 
the  great  spiritual  deep  fling  tidal  waves  of  human 
mastery  upon  every  shore.  Yet  these  interworking 
arousements  bring  to  light  the  sharper  contrasts,  in 
the  clarified  self-consciousness  of  both  Christianity 


THE  TWO  INHERITANCES  7 

and  our  civilization.  The  differences  become  ever 
more  acute  with  the  mightier  self-assertions  of  powers 
that  have  not  yet  found  their  synthesis,  which  these 
rivalries  reveal  as  humanity's  inevitable  task. 

The  mutual  oppositions  of  our  two  inheritances  are 
manifest  in  the  turbulent  history  of  our  religious 
thought.  Its  movement  has  been  only  partially  the 
unfolding  of  the  powers  of  a  self-consistent  spiritual 
life,  continually  surmounting  stages  of  incomplete 
self-consciousness, — a  process  whose  grapplings  with 
avowed  enemies,  or  whose  resistances  to  inertia, 
retrogression,  foreign  intrusions,  like  Gnosticism, 
are  elements  of  the  development.  But  the  record  is, 
in  large  part,  the  attempt  to  unite  Christianity  with 
thoughts  which  belong  to  our  civilization.  Touched 
by  criticism  the  unstable  compound  explodes. 

The  toil  has  not  been  profitless.  It  has  demon- 
strated the  necessity  of  a  faith  unencumbered  by  such 
theology.  It  has  gained  some  apprehensions  of  the 
spiritual  heritage,  which  has  indeed  been  its  chief 
concern;  the  untheological  work  of  the  great  theolo- 
gians survives:  we  repeat  the  creeds  for  that  in  them 
which  is  not  dogmatically  credal.  The  misguided 
labor  has  yet  maintained  a  confidence  in  the  ultimate 
synthesis  of  all  life  and  thought.  But  faith  has  been 
distorted  in  attempts  to  blend  it  with  the  philoso- 


8  THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

phies  which  are  outgrowths  of  our  culture,  while 
philosophy  has  been  so  degraded  that  genuine  think- 
ing has  repudiated  its  historic  ministries  to  faith. 
As  faith's  handmaid,  ancilla  fidei,  philosophy  is  a 
menial.  When  physical  science  became  dominant, 
attempts  to  express  Christianity  in  its  terms  failed 
to  amuse  men  long.  When  social  interests  are  su- 
preme, a  Christianity  of  the  social  consciousness  is 
possible  only  when  the  social  consciousness  of  our 
civilization  is  transcended.  In  vain  does  the  conserva- 
tive direct  us  back  to  the  historic  creeds  and  their 
theologies.  Those  attempts  to  mediate  between 
our  Christianity  and  civilization  are  not  one  whit 
more  congenial  to  Christianity  because  alien  to 
modern  thinking.  Yet  the  nobler  demand  for  the 
uniting  of  Christian  faith  with  present  conceptions 
is  essentially  the  same  as  that  of  the  antiquated  dog- 
matist, and  advances  to  a  new  stage  of  failure  to  bind 
together  our  different  inheritances. 

These  considerations  do  not  necessarily  bring  our 
faith  into  hostility  to  any  normal  human  power  or 
legitimate  impulse  of  man's  self-realization;  but  they 
accept  the  importance  of  the  fact  that  our  religion 
and  our  civilization  have  different  sources.  They 
arouse  a  more  active  hope  of  that  unity  of  the  human 
spirit  in  all  its  powers  which  can  be  vital,  permanent, 


THE  TWO  INHERITANCES  9 

and  implicitly  universal  when  every  element  of  life 
is  set  free  to  develop  itself  to  its  utmost.  Human 
powers  "meet  at  their  summits,"  and  each  must  have 
free  course  that  all  may  be  glorified  together.  Nor 
is  there  involved  even  a  provisional  antagonism.  Each 
power  of  humanity  in  the  measure  of  its  coming  to 
itself  apprehends  its  relations  with  its  fellows,  and 
becomes  confident  of  the  ultimate  attainment  of  the 
unity  progressively  realized. 

No  less  significant  of  the  different  origin  and  nature 
of  each  inheritance  is  the  inveterate  conflict  between 
the  Christian  spirit  and  ecclesiastical  organizations 
borrowed  from  political  institutions.  These  seculari- 
zations result  in  rivalries  between  the  church  and  the 
state,  the  school,  society  generally.  Modern  studies 
of  the  New  Testament,  with  their  reverent  purpose 
to  separate  Jesus  from  whatever  in  the  tradition 
is  none  of  His,  find  in  Him  no  intimations  of  such 
constructions.  Power  of  the  keys,  for  one  apostle 
or  for  all,  prescriptions  of  church  discipline,  rite  of 
baptism  or  eucharist,  the  very  name  church  or 
any  equivalent  word,  we  find  to  have  been  thrust 
back  upon  the  Master  by  the  supposed  necessities 
of  a  later  generation.  Nor  are  these  things  legiti- 
mate unfoldings  of  His  purpose,  or  supplies  of  His 
omissions.    It  is  not  the  fact   that  Jesus,  whether 


lO  THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

because  He  expected  the  immediate  destruction  of 
the  world  or  for  any  other  reason,  left  His  fellowship 
of  divine  love  with  no  recourse  but  to  copy  secular 
institutions.  Celestial  principles  of  ministry  and 
mutual  sacrifice  are  sufficient  to  organize  this  fellow- 
ship, if  only  His  followers  had  grace  and  wit  to  use 
them,  and  these  excellencies  can  direct  their  own  con- 
cretions for  life  in  the  world,  that  the  world  by  the 
united  task  of  this  fellowship  may  be  saved.  Sub- 
jections of  service  avail  more  for  the  building  up  of 
the  body  of  Christ  than  do  assertions  of  quasi-poHtical 
authority.  The  writer  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  amid 
the  swift  secularizations  of  the  church  within  a  century 
after  Jesus'  ministry,  looked  back  wistfully,  for  all 
his  churchmanship,  to  an  ideal  of  Christian  organiza- 
tion caught  from  the  more  spiritual  of  his  apprehen- 
sions of  his  Lord,  and  truly  imagined  that  Jesus 
washed  the  disciples'  feet  and  wiped  them  with  the 
towel  wherewith  He  was  girded,  and  then  translated 
His  deed  into  the  organizing  of  His  disciples  in  a  love 
to  one  another  like  His  love  to  His  own. 

What  forms  of  organization  might  have  been  un- 
folded in  that  spirit  of  Jesus  it  is  idle  to  speculate: 
what  effective  unity  may  be  brought  to  pass  by  fol- 
lowing out  His  leadings  is  our  pressing  business.  In- 
calculable has  been  the  historic  service  of  the  church. 


THE  TWO  INHERITANCES  ii 

and  incalculable  its  mischief,  and  the  separate  sources 
of  benefit  and  injury  are  evident.  Great  promise 
of  the  normal  unfolding  of  the  Christian  fellowship 
in  unity  of  love,  and  aggressiveness  of  the  meekness 
which  makes  no  secular  claim,  is  in  the  inevitable 
separation  of  church  and  state,  the  breaking  of 
ecclesiastical  shackles,  the  rebuffs  of  ecclesiastical 
interferences,  the  impatience,  both  within  the  church 
and  without,  of  its  polities,  the  dislike  of  the  very 
word  church  because  of  its  unspiritual  connotations, 
the  futile  outcomes  of  efforts  to  unite  competitive 
Christian  bodies  by  arrangements  of  polity  or  creed 
which  have  no  effectiveness  for  spiritual  union,  the  dis- 
regard of  her  self-assertions,  the  condemnation  passed 
upon  her  that  she  is  not  a  servant  to  wash  the  feet 
of  humanity.  In  these  animosities  and  disorganiza- 
tions is  evident  the  world's  longing  for  the  truly 
spiritual  brotherhood,  to  be  life  and  source  and  direc- 
tion for  all  that  men  have  to  do. 

In  oriental  civilizations  the  process  is  beginning, 
to  express  in  their  own  terms  the  Christianity  which 
is  invading  them.  By  these  efforts  also  will  appear 
profounder  conceptions  of  Jesus  and  His  Gospel. 
And  there  will  be  demonstrated  no  less  clearly  that 
Christianity  is  not  of  Japan  and  China,  even  as  it  is 
not  of  Italy  and  Germany.    If  ever  the  world's  civiliza- 


12  THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

tions,  the  new  and  the  renewed,  fuse  into  one  magnifi- 
cent efl&ciency,  presumably  under  the  leadership  of 
our  own  culture,  then  the  different  source  and  nature 
of  the  rehgion  of  Jesus  will  be  still  more  evident,  and 
the  problem  of  reconciliation  and  unity  even  more 
imperative. 

The  clearing  away  from  Christianity  of  the  dog- 
matisms and  ecclesiasticisms  resulting  from  our  in- 
heritance of  culture,  involves  the  issue  between  the 
Christian  religion  in  its  clearest  attainable  self- 
consciousness  and  our  civilization.  Upon  this  issue 
depends  the  maintenance,  not  of  religion,  but  of 
Christianity.  Religion  of  some  sort  must  ever  hold 
the  leadership  of  humanity:  the  dominance  of  the 
spiritual  is  in  the  very  nature  of  human  action.  For 
religion  means  ultimate  aims,  basilar  principles, 
quickening  spirit.  Religion  signifies  that  wholeness 
of  life  to  which  every  special  development,  however 
assertive  of  its  autonomy,  tends  at  length.  Even  the 
denial  that  life  can  find  unity,  direction,  and  perma- 
nent energy,  is  a  religious  denial;  nor  can  it  ever  be 
final,  since  it  is  pronounced  by  no  other  impulse  than 
that  which  must  ever  continue  the  search.  But 
whether  the  religion  to  which  our  civilization  can 
give  itself  shall  be  a  religion  of  different  source  and 
nature,  a  religion  which  therefore  demands  to  revolu- 


THE  TWO  INHERITANCES  13 

tionize  the  inmost  heart  of  it,  and  to  reconstruct 
every  outworking  of  it,  or  a  rehgion  developed  from 
our  civilization's  own  implications, — this  alternative, 
not  to  be  avoided  or  compromised,  requires  a  candor, 
solemnity,  and  earnestness  no  less  courageous  than 
when  one  stood  between  the  Roman  emperor's  altar 
and  the  lions. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   TWO   OBLIGATIONS 

All  but  unique  in  history  is  our  double  inheritance. 
Civilization  and  religion  develop  generally  as  one, 
out  of  savagery  and  barbarism  incapable  of  funda- 
mental distinctions.  No  radical  separation  of  the 
spiritual  from  the  secular  was  attained  by  the  increas- 
ing differentiations,  with  resultant  rivalries,  as  be- 
tween king  and  priest,  for  wealth  and  power.  As 
human  activities  unfold  a  presiding  deity  is  insepa- 
rable from  each.  As  these  pursuits  become  organized 
the  gods  of  them  acquire  their  several  degrees  of 
dignity,  and  their  mutual  relations  in  the  enlarging 
reahns  of  art  and  thought  and  statecraft.  Only  the 
religious  realm,  lacking  distinct  self-consciousness, 
has  no  deity  of  its  own.  The  tendency  to  monotheism 
is  to  the  god  of  the  nation.  This  stage  reappears  in 
contemporary  reversions  to  barbarism.  The  divinity 
fervently  invoked  by  a  modern  nation  in  war  time, 
is  not  discriminated  from  the  nation  in  its  military 
obsession:  murder,  lust,  and  rapine  are  very  properly 
consecrated   to   this   deity,    and   to   it   descend    the 

14 


THE  TWO  OBLIGATIONS  15 

victorious  Te  Deums.  What  is  now  anomalous  was 
of  old  normal.  In  this  temper  Asshur  is  both  nation 
and  god. 

If  a  permanent  confederacy  or  empire  is  formed,  or 
if  several  peoples  find  themselves  in  possession  of  a 
common  civihzation,  the  deity  expands  to  occupy 
the  larger  field.  The  completion  of  the  process  is  the 
identification  of  God  and  the  world.  If  the  develop- 
ment is  interrupted  by  the  acceptance  of  a  foreign 
rehgion,  the  new  faith  comes  undifferentiated  from 
its  civilization;  therefore  the  Mohammedan  conquests 
did  not  produce  a  parallel  to  our  situation.  Buddhism 
in  its  mission  fields  has  been  too  pliant  to  the  culture 
it  encountered,  and  also  too  remote  from  life,  in  its 
own  essential  negation,  to  inflict  a  stress  like  ours. 
Nearly  everywhere  except  in  Christendom  there  is 
the  growth  of  an  apparently  single  inheritance. 

National  catastrophes,  disintegrations  of  empire, 
downfalls  or  exhaustions  of  civilization,  and  infectious 
disillusions  with  the  world  drag  down  religion  and 
culture  indiscriminately  into  hopeless  demoraliza- 
tions. Yet  at  such  epochs  the  two  strain  apart. 
Religion  may  flee  from  the  bankrupt  world  and  from 
the  desires,  evaluations,  and  aims  of  life  in  the  world : 
its  deity  is  then  the  god  of  the  religious  life,  or  rather 
is   the   religious   consciousness   itself,    since   all   else 


1 6  THE  CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

is  renounced  and  denied.  But  this  escape  from  the 
world  is  no  recourse  to  those  whom  conditions  or 
inner  limitations  force  to  acknowledge  the  actual. 
Their  spiritual  inheritance,  which  had  been  undis- 
tinguished from  secular  interests  now  degenerating, 
is  proven  insufficient.  Then,  if  no  other  civihzation 
with  its  religion  imposes  itself,  the  expatriated  soul 
is  open  to  a  foreign  gospel,  which,  however  originally 
involved  in  a  different  culture,  appeals  as  relatively 
unmingled  spiritual,  for  the  distinct  spiritual  need. 

Such  a  religion  the  Roman  decadence  sought,  and 
Christianity  was  the  richest  of  the  spiritual  goods 
accessible.  The  Northern  barbarians  indeed  received 
their  culture  and  their  faith  as  one,  but  they  were 
twain,  and  must  at  length  declare  their  difference. 
The  ancient  civilization  asserted  itself  with  increasing 
power,  all  the  more  vitally  because  not  as  an  imita- 
tion of  the  past,  except  in  a  transient  phase  of  the 
renewal,  but  with  new  energies  and  original  resources 
productive  of  other  forms.  The  compHcations  and 
conflicts  of  our  double  inheritance  are  upon  us.  This 
strangely  inevitable  path  Christendom  has  trodden 
almost  alone. 

Yet  along  this  path  the  whole  world  must  be  led, 
and  guides  of  humanity  are  we.  Whatever  the  results 
of  the  contact  of  East  and  West,  it  is  evident  that 


THE  TWO  OBLIGATIONS  17 

from  the  vast  development  of  the  secular,  the  whole 
world  over,  the  religious  is  falling  away,  the  funda- 
mental differentiation  has  arrived. 

Delusive  is  the  conception  of  Christian  missions 
as  the  imparting  of  an  alleged  Christian  civilization. 
The  inner  contradictions  of  that  phrase  are  more  evi- 
dent to  those  for  whom  it  is  a  novelty,  and  who  regard 
our  culture  from  outside.  The  hope  of  the  triumph 
of  Christianity  in  non-Christian  lands  depends  upon 
our  ability  to  distinguish  its  spiritual  nature  from 
our  secular  heritage.  When  the  Oriental  scornfully 
alleges  the  defects,  oppressions,  and  abominations 
of  Western  civilization,  even  in  contrast  with  his  own, 
the  Christian  answer  is  not  extenuation,  or  attempt 
at  refutation,  but,  "Not  of  our  civilization  are  we 
ambassadors."  It  must  indeed  be  a  Christianity 
that  uses  all  attainments  of  Western  culture  for  its 
ministry  of  divine  love  to  body,  mind,  soul,  and  social 
regeneration,  but  it  need  not  claim  that  these  tools 
are  of  its  own  forging,  and  it  must  use  them  for  a 
purpose  transcendent  of  their  nature.  It  must 
actively  trust  the  power  of  the  spiritual  to  subdue 
all  things  to  itself,  but  what  the  forms  of  these  things 
may  be  in  the  secular  realm,  it  leaves  for  other  forces 
to  determine. 

For  the  sake  of  its  imperative  missionary  obligation 


1 8  THE  CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

Christianity  must  become  conscious,  in  the  regions 
it  calls  its  home,  of  its  innermost  nature,  its  unmingled 
spirituality.  The  work  of  the  Christian  thinker  to 
penetrate  our  religion's  deepest  being,  where  its 
relations  to  all  else  are  discovered,  the  toil  of  the 
scholar  into  the  origins  of  Christianity,  to  strip  them 
of  every  intrusion  and  misleading  tradition,  are  the 
urgent  obUgation  of  the  fullness  of  Christianity's 
missionary  era.  And  because  religion  and  secular 
life  must  be  made  one,  it  is  for  us  to  learn,  both  in 
the  recesses  of  the  soul  and  in  devoted  service  es- 
pecially to  the  old  new  lands,  the  final  synthesis 
which  can  be  attained  only  by  fathoming  the  depths 
and  testing  the  conquering  energies  of  the  spiritual  life, 
that  our  two  inheritances,  now  open  to  the  world's 
appropriation,  may  be  fused  in  the  unity  of  the  spirit. 
Ancient  Israel  presents  a  significant  parallel.  That 
is  to  say,  similar  conditions  are  to  be  evaluated 
in  the  two  stages  of  our  religion.  The  legend  of 
the  covenant  on  Mount  Sinai  between  Jahveh  as 
name  previously  unknown  and  therefore  deity  be- 
fore unworshiped,  and  Israel  to  whom  Jahveh  then 
first  disclosed  Himself,  may  not  estabhsh  a  foreign 
source  for  the  historic  origin  of  the  faith  of  the 
chosen  people:  other  ancient  lore  of  theirs  contradicts 
the  kernel   of   this   tradition.    But   the  indubitable 


THE  TWO  OBLIGATIONS  19 

import  of  the  story  is  that  Israel's  religious  inheri- 
tance was  found  to  be  in  contrast  with  the  Canaan- 
itish  influence,  which  might  else  have  made  this 
people  rudest  of  the  rude  exemplars  of  the  Babylonian- 
Phenician  culture  and  religion  in  one.  Through 
the  centuries  following  the  settlement  in  Palestine, 
the  God  of  a  distant  Arabian  desert  contended  with 
the  undifferentiated  civilization  and  worship  of  South- 
ern Syria.  Jahveh  was  in  the  deepest  sense  a  war-god, 
leading  the  spiritual  potencies  of  His  people  against 
mightier  enemies  than  chariots  and  horsemen.  It 
was  this  double  inheritance  that  came  to  fiercest 
disruption  with  the  great  prophets.  Their  signal 
failure  to  create  a  civilization  of  their  own — for  their 
attainments  were  in  the  religious  realm — was  the 
greatest  advance  possible  at  that  stage.  Through 
all  Pharisaic  scholasticisms  and  against  all  pagan 
intrusions  their  achievement  remained  entire:  the 
vindication,  for  Jesus'  fulfillment,  of  a  religion  dis- 
tinct from  any  form  of  secular  progress,  and  therefore 
competent  to  rule  the  uttermost  developments  of 
culture,  to  which  it  is  ever  transcendent. 

Our  situation,  so  anomalous  and  perplexing,  may 
awaken  in  us  a  certain  envy  of  other  times  and  climes, 
which  have  kept  a  comparatively  undifferentiated  sim- 
plicity of  life, — as  for  instance  the  Hellenic  harmony 


20  THE  CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

and  symmetry.  When  we  are  called  to  weep  over 
the  miseries  of  humanity  in  its  less  complex  stages, 
we  may  be  reminded  that  the  relative  absence  of 
this  misery  of  ours  left  larger  scope  for  natural  buoy- 
ancy. Thus  the  sorrows  of  our  own  time  assume  a 
deepened  pathos.  Upon  the  wealths  that  have 
descended  to  us  is  imposed,  as  a  heavy  inheritance 
tax,  a  double  burden  to  all  life  and  thought.  It  is 
inconvenient  to  be  heir  of  all  the  ages.  We  are  tempted 
to  surrender  a  part;  and  in  that  choice  the  necessity 
of  living  at  all  compels  the  alienation  of  the  religious 
bequest.  So  multitudes  unify  life;  often  to  find 
intenser  strifes  outbreaking  in  the  sections  retained, 
with  terrible  avengings  from  the  excluded  realm. 

Yet  the  situation  presents  the  fundamental,  in- 
evitable duality,  come  to  its  clearest  expression  thus 
far.  From  the  beginnings  of  humanity  two  natures 
have  striven  within  us:  thus  the  human  comes  into 
being.  From  the  beginning  of  human  thought  there 
have  been  inflowings  from  sense  beneath,  and  from 
the  ideal  above.  Two  masters  have  always  demanded 
to  be  served,  the  importunate  body  and  the  inexorable 
soul.  To  ignore  this  internal  division  is  to  relapse  to 
the  brute;  to  accept  the  ever  increasing  complication, 
not  merely  as  between  body  and  soul,  but  along  all 
ranges  of  thought  and  life,  is  progress  manward.    To 


THE  TWO  OBLIGATIONS  21 

gain  the  unity  beyond  possibility  of  disruption  is 
self-realization.  We  are  distracted  between  brain 
process  and  thought  process  never  in  contact,  ever 
parallel;  between  mind  and  matter,  all  the  more 
opposed  to  one  another  when  matter  is  conceived  to 
be  in  mind,  and  thought  itself  is  dissevered  between 
the  organizations  of  sense  impressions  and  the  organ- 
izing power.  We  are  perplexed  by  materiaUsm  always 
confuted  by  an  idealism  never  able  to  make  its  own 
claim  secure;  by  science  excluding  consideration  of  the 
superphenomenal  without  whose  postulates  it  cannot 
say  its  first  word.  We  demand  that  God  shall  be  un- 
contaminate  by  the  visible  and  tangible  and  we  find 
the  universe  a  void  except  as  God  is  its  fullness.  The 
aspirations  without  which  life  has  no  meaning  are 
mocked  by  the  grim  and  trivial  necessity  of  daily 
bread.  The  soul  that  strains  to  escape  sense  is  de- 
pendent upon  that  intractable  beast  to  carry  it  up  the 
heights.  That  which  one  is  all  but  compelled  to  call 
the  dualism  of  the  modern  consciousness  has  its  roots 
in  our  nature  and  grows  with  our  growth.  Thanks  to 
Galilee  and  Athens,  the  profound  cleavage  of  human- 
ity's inner  life  has  come  to  a  manifestation  clear 
enough  for  patience  and  courage  to  face.  The  sep- 
arateness  of  Christianity  from  the  other  inheritance 
fulfills  at  least  one  condition  of  reaUty,  as  our  be- 


2  2  THE  CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

wildered  minds  have  always  encountered  it.  The 
variance  unto  the  uttermost  may  perhaps  disclose  the 
secret  of  all  harmony  and  worth  and  joy. 

Christian  theology  has  obscured  this  inner  contra- 
diction by  another,  sin;  so  deriving  Hfe's  fundamental 
task  from  a  radical  perversion.  But  the  appearance 
of  a  superior  moral  earnestness  here  is  illusive.  For 
the  consciousness  of  the  abnormality  of  sin  is  weak  and 
formal  except  when  sin  is  perceived  to  be  divergence 
from  the  normal  task;  and  patience  and  fortitude  to 
unite  the  bases  of  life  depend  upon  accepting  this 
obligation  as  the  supreme  moral  endeavor.  This 
task  in  its  intensity  was  the  redemptive  mission  of 
the  holy  Jesus.  The  supreme  moral  good  can  be 
nothing  less  than  the  complete  manhood,  maintaining, 
fulfilling  and  uniting  all  potencies  of  our  nature.  To 
refuse  the  task  is  the  fundamental  sin  against  one's 
own  soul  and  humanity  and  whatever  divineness 
possesses  them. 

To  accuse  our  nature  of  irreconcilable  dualism  is  a 
blasphemy  against  oneself  which  denies  itself  in  its 
very  conception.  Only  the  unity  of  a  man  can  pro- 
nounce him  what  he  is,  and  cannot  pronounce  him 
radically  dual.  The  attempt  at  such  utterance  sets 
the  contrasted  elements  into  a  fundamental  relation 
and   indissoluble   wholeness.     Let   not  life   attempt 


THE  TWO  OBLIGATIONS  23 

that  which  rational  thought  repudiates,  the  practical 
denial  of  either  hemisphere.  Nor  can  there  be  division 
of  life  into  separate  compartments  to  be  occupied 
alternately.  Then  the  man  is  not  at  home  in  either. 
He  loses  both;  for  then  the  secular  loses  significance 
and  the  religious  loses  content.  A  religion  which  is 
apart  from  anything  to  be  thought  or  felt  or  achieved 
denies  itself  and  disappears. 

Yet  any  superficial  reconciliation  the  depths  of 
life  convulse  and  rend  asunder.  Here  are  religious 
interpretations  of  science  that  is  not  science,  and 
scientific  formulations  of  religion  that  is  not  religion. 
Here  are  reductions  of  the  ethical  to  an  intellectual  of 
no  worth,  and  reductions  of  reason  to  an  ethic  that 
has  lost  its  place  in  a  rational  universe.  Here  are 
those  transferences  from  realm  to  realm,  by  which 
the  power  transferred  loses  the  citizenship  of  its 
essential  nature;  the  spiritual  becomes  superstition, 
retrogression,  savagery,  idiocy,  or  aims  alien  to  religion 
corrupt  it  into  the  hypocrisies  which  aroused  Jesus' 
supreme  scorn. 

To  live  soberly  and  achievingly  is  to  accept  the  two 
inclusive  essentials  of  life,  distinguishing  each  in  its 
own  function,  yet  determining  that  the  higher  shall 
give  to  the  lower  in  its  still  untrammeled  action, 
perennial  energy,  ultimate  significance,  and  direction 


24  THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

to  the  supreme  goal.  If  Christianity  proves  thus 
sufficient  for  life,  Christians  we  will  continue  to  be: 
the  Christian  is  the  man  who  realizes  such  power  in 
the  Christian  faith.  No  easy  task  is  appointed  him: 
its  arduousness  is  its  inspiration. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   SOURCE   OF   OUR  CIVILIZATION 

The  assertion  of  the  rights  of  both  our  civilization 
and  Christianity  does  not  necessarily  involve  mutual 
antagonism.  It  may  be  a  friendly  suit  to  test  the 
claims  of  each,  for  common  advantage.  The  process 
seems  to  go  steadily  against  our  faith.  Its  ancient 
claims,  asserted  by  the  church  as  volunteer  solicitor, 
to  eminent  domain  over  every  realm  of  human  con- 
duct, are  disallowed.  Hence  unseemly  arrogance  of 
the  successful  litigant,  and  on  the  other  side  resent- 
ments of  defeat.  Yet  it  is  not  improbable  that  the 
very  liberation  of  secular  forces  may  awaken  in  them 
a  more  conscious  need  of  an  energy  deeper,  and  an 
aspiration  higher  than  are  in  themselves;  while  loss 
of  the  world  to  tyrannize  may  open  the  spiritual  vision 
to  celestial  expanses,  which  shed  rain  and  sunshine 
upon  all  that  has  been  given  to  the  children  of  men. 

Other  powers  have  experienced  loss  of  ancient 
privilege  with  gain  of  influence.  Philosophy  has  been 
driven  from  her  insolent  Hmitations  of  psychology 
and  the  other  sciences,  to  become  the  science  that 

25 


26  THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

tests,  estimates,  and  unites  the  unprescribed  dis- 
coveries of  them  all.  Economics,  pushed  into  its 
place  by  insurgent  social  disciplines,  is  consulted  in 
social  questions  beyond  its  former  purview.  The 
sphere  of  the  state,  restricted  by  individual  rights, 
is  regulative  of  vast  new  fields.  Much  of  the  energy 
of  our  time  is  remuneratively  expended  upon  the 
mutual  limitations  of  the  departments  of  human 
activity,  with  the  result  of  relating  them  more  fun- 
damentally, for  the  increased  effectiveness  of  each. 
So  it  may  be  with  this  task,  in  which  the  other  dis- 
criminations culminate.  The  work  can  be  better  done 
without  exultations,  rages,  or  panics  on  either  side. 

In  their  unprejudiced  delimitations  of  nature  and 
function,  Christianity  and  civilization  find  their  re- 
spective possessions  exposed  to  a  common  enemy. 
The  foe  is  barbarism,  equally  hostile  to  rehgion  and 
culture,  hypocritically  masking  its  opposition,  and 
bringing  to  each  gifts  pregnant  with  destruction.  It 
is  inveterate  antagonist  of  all  man's  higher  faculties. 
An  apostle  of  culture  has  named  its  champions  after 
enemies  of  our  religious  inheritance:  "This  uncir- 
cumcised  Philistine  that  defieth  the  armies  of  the 
living  God." 

Barbarism  is  insensibility  to  culture  as  inheritance. 
It  dotes  on  the  word  modern,  which  connotes  to  it, 


THE  SOURCE  OF  OUR  CIVILIZATION  27 

not  new  conditions  to  be  subdued  to  perennial  aims, 
not  challenge  of  fresh  fields  for  the  continuous  Kfe 
of  humanity  to  possess,  but  disconnection.  It  prates 
of  modern  science,  modern  education,  the  modern 
spirit,  about  half  a  century  old,  as  if  the  first  toot  of  a 
locomotive  were  Gabriel's  trump  of  doom  to  history, 
and  song  of  the  morning  stars  to  a  new  creation.  For 
its  heart  is  set  on  things,  its  mind  upon  the  phenom- 
enal knowledge  of  things,  and  its  energy  upon  the 
discovery  and  ownership  of  things:  new  things,  there- 
fore a  new  age,  a  new  world,  a  new  mankind! 

But  civilization,  culture,  is  inheritance,  the  contin- 
uous, progressive  inner  life  of  the  spirit  of  humanity. 
It  is  vital  fire  passed  down  the  times  from  soul  to  soul, 
by  loyal  torch-bearers.  Things  are  chaos  till  spirit 
relates  them.  Spirit  is  inheritance  of  an  unbroken 
life.  Civilization,  culture,  the  former  synonym  con- 
noting creative  power,  the  latter  ideal  value,  consist 
in  significancies  and  ends  which  are  not  of  today  or 
yesterday,  and  which  may  grow  in  secret,  or  rise  again 
from  tombs  vainly  sealed.  Whatever  their  unexpected 
emergings,  their  source  is  far  away  and  their  currents 
continuous.  Civilization  is  the  unfolding  of  the  re- 
sistless force  within  mankind,  and  is  mighty  to  subdue 
all  newly  discovered  conditions  and  all  newly  won 
attainments  to  its  own  developing  nature,  pressing 


28  THE  CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

on  to  fulfill  life  and  joy  and  worth  long  prophesied. 
Things  new  or  old  are  nought  to  it,  unless  vitally- 
possessed.  Of  first  importance  is  the  possessor, 
humanity's  indissoluble  life,  inward  spiritual  power 
essential,  perennial,  inexhaustible. 

As  Christianity  must  again  and  again  turn  back  to 
its  springs  of  living  water,  so  must  our  civilization 
renew  its  connection,  equally  vital,  with  the  original 
force  of  its  self-attainments  and  world-conquests. 
As  the  founder  of  Christianity  knew  the  secret  of  life 
in  the  invisible,  so  the  Greek  genius  awoke  to  the  full- 
ness of  the  soul's  life  in  the  visible  world.  That 
discovery  developed  and  organized  itself  into  the 
Hellenic-Roman  civilization,  the  classic  culture, 
classic  as  culture,  Roman  as  viewed  from  without, 
Hellenic  as  felt  within.  The  origin  of  many  things  in 
modern  civilization  is  elsewhere,  but  here  is  the 
assimilative  force  that  makes  such  additions  elements 
of  culture,  here  is  the  only  fountain-head  of  that  which 
can  be  civilization  to  the  Western  peoples  at  least. 

Life  in  its  thrill  of  responsiveness  to  ever  fresh 
appeals  from  earth  and  sky,  event  and  object  of  de- 
sire, in  its  buoyant  acceptance  of  the  challenge  of  the 
thing  to  be  penetrated  with  man,  this  is  the  joyous 
energy  of  our  inheritance.  Unlike  the  Oriental  and 
the  representative  of  our  own  barbarism,  the  fathers 


THE   SOURCE  OF   OUR   CIVILIZATION  29 

of  our  culture  were  not  overwhelmed  by  the  undis- 
tinguished mass  of  things,  but  they  would  selectively 
elevate  into  a  possession  of  the  human  spirit  whatever 
seemed  to  them  capable  of  such  appropriation,  as  fast 
as  spirit  could  refashion  it.  So  their  imagination 
heightened  the  expanse  of  Heaven  into  the  counte- 
nance of  Zeus,  radiant  serenity;  and  light  and  sound 
and  form,  contributed  by  the  world  to  discriminating 
perception  and  plastic  hand  and  ordering  thought, 
were  completed  in  Apollo's  supreme  artistry.  The 
soul,  because  conscious  of  its  increasing  ownership  and 
mastery,  passed  by,  for  the  time  being,  that  which 
it  could  not  humanize,  confident  that  further  develop- 
ments of  latent  power  would  win  larger  conquests  of 
whatever  might  appear  in  the  soul's  march  through 
the  world.  Therefore  the  confidence  of  inexhaustible 
discovery,  invention  and  subjugation.  It  is  an  en- 
franchised manhood  both  in  its  appropriations  and 
its  provisional  renunciations.  It  is  the  opposite  of  the 
modern  barbarism,  which  is  crushed  by  accumulation 
of  things  unusable,  and  whose  phenomenal  acquaint- 
ance with  the  external  surpasses  the  acquisitiveness  of 
the  life  within. 

Out  of  this  self-restrained  mastery  of  the  world, 
this  frank  appropriation  of  just  so  much  as  the  soul 
can  use,  were  formed  the  order,  organization,  pro- 


so  THE  CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

portion  and  harmony  of  that  ancient  life,  which  is 
both  remote  from  the  aspect  of  our  time,  and  also 
congenial  to  the  still  conscious  inner  impulse,  our 
inalienable  heritage.  We  long  for  their  vital  joy,  rap- 
turous abandonment  to  that  which  can  intensify  sense, 
and  also  clarify  thought  and  invigorate  purpose.  We 
are  put  to  shame  by  their  repugnance  to  the  un- 
discriminating  brutishness  which  is  insensible  to  the 
associations  that  both  refine  and  heighten  natural 
pleasure.  We  would  regain  the  sanity  of  their  refusal 
of  mystical  contemplation  that  engulfs  the  mind  in 
the  object,  as  does  animalism  also.  This  is  not  the 
contemplation  of  Aristotle,  and  not  in  this  sense  is  even 
Plotinus  to  be  understood.  Not  theirs  the  insolent 
aims  which  presume  impracticable  tasks,  essay  ideals 
unrealizable.  Here  is  the  combined  buoyancy  and 
self-restraint  that  keep  the  spirit  unsated,  ever  young, 
yet  free  from  the  extravagances  of  youth,  and  fortified 
against  its  sentimental  sadness  and  the  disillusions 
which  else  youth  prepares  for  its  own  destruction. 
It  is  a  joy  of  action  that  finds  ardent,  rational  satis- 
factions in  the  tasks  of  self-realization  and  conquest  of 
the  world.  When  it  dreams  betimes,  beside  some 
clear-flowing  brook  along  its  way,  it  plays  with  no 
unformed  fancies,  but  with  the  realities  which  it  has 
made  its  own.    Theirs  was  the  progressive  humanizing 


THE   SOURCE  OF  OUR   CIVILIZATION  31 

of  the  world  and  self,  the  secret  of  unfeverish,  serene 
delight,  with  the  inner  Hfe  as  master,  yet  ruling  its 
domain  constitutionally,  according  to  the  nature  and 
laws  thereof. 

The  representative  of  this  culture  does  not  shut  his 
eyes  to  sorrow,  dwells  in  no  fool's  paradise.  His  un- 
shrinking vision  apprehends  that  the  soul  does  not 
attain  itself  without  fortitude  and  the  arduous  ex- 
perience which  brings  this  virtue  into  exercise.  Keen 
is  his  responsiveness  to  the  tragic.  Yet  he  would  admit 
the  evils  of  hfe  only  as  they  deepen  its  harmony  and 
serve  the  soul's  conquest  of  itself  and  whatever  it 
encounters.  And  when  he  must  endure  the  weight  of 
more  mysterious  ills  he  is  not  without  resource.  He 
ascribes  the  invincible  woes  to  that  which  is  remote 
from  the  human  spirit,  incommensurate  with  it.  He 
externalizes  them,  commits  them  to  the  domain  of 
inhuman,  irrational  necessity,  which,  however  terrible 
its  injuries  and  spoliations,  must  not  be  suffered  to 
obliterate  the  fair  city  where  the  human  spirit  is  lord. 

Of  this  ancient  culture  art  is  consummate  and  per- 
vasive, consummate  because  pervasive.  Persistent 
is  the  determination  so  to  possess  oneself  and  so  to 
dominate  all  things  that  the  spirit  shall  be  expressed 
in  them,  and  realize  itself  in  the  expression;  so  to 
order  the  republic  of  the  self-harmonized  soul  that  all 


32  THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

the  elements  of  life  shall  move  together  as  a  graceful 
dance  and  stately  procession  of  beautiful  forms.  The 
ethical,  which  is  symmetrical,  and  harmonious  with 
reahty,  is  moral  beauty.  As  moral  beauty  it  unfolds 
a  realm  of  social  rights  and  obligations,  symmetrical, 
harmonious,  where  men  capable  of  such  artistic  citizen- 
ship may  live  in  the  fellowship  of  a  state  that  co- 
ordinates human  interests,  and  unites  its  personal 
constituents  in  an  inclusive  aim  and  devotion. 

In  politics  and  ethics  especially,  the  defects  of  our 
ancient  culture  are  suggested.  But  it  is  not  the  in- 
evitable defects  which  we  have  to  preserve.  Nor  can 
their  limitations  upon  personality,  which  are  dis- 
closed by  our  Semitic  inheritance,  condemn  our 
civilization  as  such,  though  the  necessity  is  thus  in- 
dicated of  that  which  is  more  than  civilization.  Their 
cultural  limitations  generally,  even  the  subordination 
of  personality  to  the  state  and  their  forms  of  slavery, 
were  enfranchisements,  historically  conditioned,  from 
greater  repressions.  Our  limitations  are  to  be  over- 
come by  the  power  in  which  they  advanced. 

Their  reflective  thought  invaded  realms  beyond 
the  reach  of  fashioning  hand  or  the  reciprocal  actions 
of  men,  and  gave  its  own  order  to  its  objects,  yet  in 
accordance  with  their  natures,  as  apprehended  by 
the  sane  judgment.    This  conquest  knows  its  metes 


THE  SOURCE  OF  OUR  CIVILIZATION         33 

and  bounds.  Their  philosophy  found  itself  when  it 
turned  from  attempts  to  construe  the  universe,  and 
bent  serene,  intense  brows  to  the  task  of  normalizing 
human  life,  retaining  as  much  of  the  cosmological  as 
served  this  purpose.  The  thinker,  finding  beneath 
the  human  that  which  is  intractable,  admits  in  matter 
an  irrational  residuum;  and  also  acknowledging  the 
inmost  secret  of  the  universe  to  be  untraceable, 
reverently  withdraws  from  things  too  high,  and  be- 
tween the  abyss  and  the  summit,  organizes  within 
far  flung  limits  that  ever  expand  downward  and  up- 
ward, his  exquisitely  penetrated  world  of  rational 
satisfactions,  intellectual  harmonies,  his  hfe  free,  rich, 
beautiful,  of  well-ordered,  self-restrained  buoyancy 
of  soul. 

We  look  back  not  upon  an  ancient  dream  of  what 
human  life  may  be,  but  upon  an  actual  accomplish- 
ment. Though  their  achievement  was  inevitably 
beset  with  crudities  and  resistances, — as  the  mon- 
strous imaginings  of  myths  descended  from  barbarism 
never  ceased  to  haunt  their  faith  in  the  younger 
gods — yet  only  in  one  realm  of  high  and  positive  values 
has  there  been  surpassed  the  Hellenic  approximation 
of  life  to  its  ideal.  Jesus  attained  a  task,  to  which  He 
summoned  His  disciples,  where  all  contradictions  can 
be  surmounted,  all  limitations  to  the  human  spirit 


34  THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

transcended.  Only  a  toil  beyond  the  twelve  of  Her- 
akles  can  be  fulfilled.  Jesus  fathomed  and  solved  that 
inner  contradiction  of  the  soul  against  itself  which  the 
Greek's  very  ideal  refused  to  face.  Jesus  makes  his 
home  the  innermost  sanctuary  of  His  father's  house. 
From  this  citadel,  against  whosoever  does  not  strive 
to  enter,  issue  continually  the  destroyers  of  any  lower 
organization  of  life.  All  the  greater  marvel  then  is  the 
Hellenic  approximation  of  Hfe's  interfusion  with  its 
ideal.  This  achievement  of  theirs,  against  assaults 
from  every  side,  comes  to  us  not  as  a  formula,  nor  an 
aim  of  effort  merely,  but  as  vital,  personal  influence, 
comparable  in  some  respects  with  that  of  the  Galilean. 
The  personal  power,  the  spiritual  influence  of  our 
inheritance  of  civiHzation,  is  not  for  a  favored  few 
of  these  later  days.  The  Hellenic  culture  is  not 
aristocratic,  as  certain  of  its  advocates  mistake  it. 
The  actual  exclusions  were  enforced,  not  desired.  The 
ancient  leaders  of  this  culture  felt  themselves  to  be  not 
exceptional,  but  representative.  Their  distinction 
grew  from  the  common  soil,  and  was  promptly  recog- 
nized in  most  cases  by  their  contemporaries  as  an 
expression  of  the  general  consciousness.  Contrast 
the  influence  of  Homer  then,  not  only  as  religious 
teacher  but  as  cultural  power,  and  the  influence  of 
even  Shakespeare  (the  Bible  and  its  derivatives  are 


THE  SOURCE  OF  OUR   CIVILIZATION  35 

in  another  category)  in  the  common  thought  and  Hfe 
of  the  modern  world.  Contrast  what  the  name  of 
Plato  meant  generally  then  and  the  meaninglessness 
to  nearly  all  but  specialists,  of  the  names  of  Kant 
and  Hegel  today.  Our  popular  philosophers  are  those 
who  deny  philosophy  in  Plato's  sense  of  it,  as  ideal 
and  cultural.  Then  the  man  of  creative  genius  felt 
the  call  to  live  most  deeply  into  the  life  around 
him,  to  become  the  most  social  of  men,  even  as  the 
statues  of  gods  and  heroes  glorified  public  places,  and 
to  give  back  in  finer  and  larger  expression,  the  goods 
he  had  received  from  the  general  artistic  and  intel- 
lectual consciousness.  Our  class  limitations  of  culture 
would  be  to  the  Greek  the  grossest  of  our  barbar- 
isms. Today  the  beloved  of  the  gods  feels  the  doom 
to  dwell  apart,  and  to  sound  his  message  as  against 
the  tumult  of  the  tides.  Yet  beneath  the  uncouth 
restlessness,  feverishness,  confusion  of  our  modern 
life,  remains  the  soul  responsive  to  this  heritage 
essentially  democratic,  universally  human. 

To  speak,  either  in  gratulation  or  regret,  of  the 
decay  of  this  spirit  of  world-conquering  buoyancy, 
of  rationally  restrained  self-development,  of  artistic 
symmetry  of  life,  is  to  renounce  civilization  itself. 
That  has  not  decayed,  which,  at  every  mighty  asser- 
tion of  human  powers,  rises  in  new  forms,  creative 


36  THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

potencies,  protean  adaptiveness.  The  general  con- 
sensus of  the  modern  world  regards  as  a  superficial 
eccentricity  the  assigning  of  the  date  of  its  birth  to 
any  other  epoch  than  the  renascence  of  the  Hellenic 
culture.  Not  the  appearance  of  new  conditions,  or 
the  combinations  of  them,  not  one  or  another  of  the 
new  discoveries  or  organizations  of  discovery  in 
thoughts  or  things,  marks  off  our  modern  world  from 
medievalism,  but  the  resurrection  of  that  ancient, 
perennial  modernism,  which  is  the  life  element  of  all 
the  cultural  attainments  of  the  last  four  centuries. 
To  the  Hellenic  spirit  every  forward  step  of  human- 
ity must  turn  for  the  understanding  of  the  advance, 
for  the  harmony  of  the  later  expansions  of  this  original 
potency,  for  sane  and  untrammeled  joy  of  achieve- 
ment. The  very  reactions  find  themselves  dependent 
upon  some  element  of  it,  which  draws  them  at  length 
to  its  essential.  The  age  of  the  enlightenment  re- 
ceived from  that  clear  dawn  of  intelligence  the  dry 
light  of  rational  thinking,  which  was  then  the  urgent 
need.  The  stiffening  constrictions  of  that  age  were 
broken  through  when  Winckelmann  and  Lessing 
groped  for  the  more  vital  elements  of  Hellenic  dis- 
tinction, when  insurgent  Gothic  romanticism  be- 
came fruitful  from  Faust's  union  with  Helena,  and 
the  followers  of  Kant  blended  both  his  revolution 


THE  SOURCE  OF  OUR  CIVILIZATION         37 

of  thought  and  the  turbulent  demands  of  that  time 
with  the  spirit  of  Plato,  and  through  the  political 
life  of  Christendom  the  Hellenic  freedom  asserted 
itself,  working  out  toward  Hellenic  rationalities  and 
harmonies.  Into  one's  own  age  indeed  one  must  Hve. 
Its  peculiar,  inevitable  aims  and  problems  must  be 
appropriated  in  serviceable  masteries.  Yet  all  must 
be  suffused  with  our  civilization's  original,  but  vitally- 
expanded  and  applied  interpretation,  regulation, 
aim  and  value  of  life.  Whatever  else  we  have  in- 
herited, conquered,  and  accumulated,  save  the  great 
competitive  inheritance,  is  body  for  this  soul.  Here 
is  the  unifying  of  our  possessions  in  that  which  gives 
them  worth. 


CHAPTER   IV 


MODERN  HELLENISM 


Our  time's  normal  differences  from  the  origin  of  our 
civilization  testify  to  the  power  of  the  Hellenic  genius, 
both  to  produce  new  forms,  altering  the  aspects  of  cul- 
ture, and  to  possess  new  races.  It  is  because  of  those 
undying  men  that  we  live  in  a  new  world,  of  which 
they  knew  but  a  little  part  of  the  Kttle  part  we  know; 
in  a  new  universe,  whose  physical  center  is  displaced 
from  earth  to  we  know  not  where,  but  whose  spiritual 
center  they  have  discovered  in  the  human  soul. 
The  inventions  that  have  changed  the  conditions  of 
living  are  applications  of  the  scientific  spirit  which 
they  won.  The  social  problems,  which  confront  us  as 
a  devouring  Sphinx,  are  to  be  overcome  by  out- 
workings  of  their  conceptions  of  human  organization. 
Because  the  present  is  an  unfolding  of  their  life  and 
thought  it  would  be  disloyalty  to  them  to  try  to 
reproduce  the  antique  forms.  The  fair  shapes  which 
we  are  to  behold  in  nature,  whose  rationally  har- 
monious existence  they  felt,  must  be  more  deeply 

humanized  than  Oread  and  Triton. 

38 


MODERN   HELLENISM  39 

The  Englishman  who  sacrificed  a  bull  to  Poseidon 
showed  himself  as  barbarous  as  an  Athenian  of 
Pericles'  day  demanding  human  hecatombs  to  Diony- 
sos  Zagraios,  or  monstrosities  of  Arcadian  shrines 
to  desecrate  the  Parthenon.  Not  the  philosophy 
of  Plato  nor  even  the  esthetic  of  Phidias  are  what 
we  seek,  but  the  force  which  formed  these  idealisms 
and  the  developments  from  them.  The  arid  learning 
of  just  Greek  things,  philological  and  archeological, 
takes  the  life  out  of  our  inheritance,  invaluable  as 
are  such  patient  studies  when  genuine  scholarship 
gives  its  investigations  to  the  service  of  advancing 
culture.  That  which  calls  itself  modern  paganism, 
whether  self-satisfied  or  disillusioned,  stiffens  itself 
in  their  ethical  and  religious  limitations,  against 
which  they  contended,  and  may  become  one  of  the 
eccentric  degeneracies  of  our  time.  The  spirit  of 
civilization,  as  of  religion,  outgoes  its  creations,  and 
whoever,  elects  to  stay  in  the  things  created  loses 
the    spirit    which    is    their    life    and    worth    and 

joy. 

The  most  truly  modern  developments  are  Hellenic. 
Yet  they  are  not  sufiiciently  aware  of  their  nature 
to  accomplish  their  implicit  purpose.  They  need 
invigoration  from  the  fountain-head  of  our  culture. 
Our  science,  for  example,  is  Hellenic  in  its  passion 


40  THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

for  exact  fact,  to  be  gained  in  freedom  from  any 
external  consideration.  But  the  scientific  temper 
and  method  which  we  unscientifically  fancy  the  dis- 
tinction of  our  age,  is  famihar  to  comparatively  few. 
In  extensive  tracts  it  has  to  fight  a  desperate  battle, 
as  in  pontics  and  religion,  against  grotesque  scruples, 
prejudices,  and  self-interests  which  are  self-delusions. 
Its  weakness  against  its  adversaries  is  because  it  does 
not  know  the  truth  comprehended  by  those  pioneers 
of  the  actual,  that  the  attainment  of  any  fact  has  its 
importance  as  a  step  toward  the  understanding  of 
the  cosmos,  and  that  the  limitations,  which  every 
scientific  investigation  accepts,  are  justified  only 
because  the  limitation  is  necessary  to  the  end  which 
science  faithfully  seeks  by  provisionally  disregarding. 
In  the  loss  of  this  consciousness,  our  enormous  gains 
of  instruments,  methods,  discoveries,  and  masteries 
of  nature  leave  our  science  fragmentary,  often  in- 
significant, and  beset  by  internal  strifes.  It  can  win 
mankind,  as  well  as  unite  its  own  forces,  only  in  that 
larger  consciousness,  to  be  implicit  yet  unintrusive 
in  every  scientific  procedure;  for  then  science  has  at 
its  disposal  both  the  passion  for  the  universal  and  the 
esthetic  delight  in  the  harmony  of  things,  and  wins 
man's  heart  and  aspiration  for  the  most  arduous 
intellectual  toils.    Our  science  will  remain  ineffective 


MODERN  HELLENISM  41 

as  long  as  it  mutilates  and  atrophies  manhood's 
most  vital  impulses.  Science  without  culture  is 
barbarism. 

Characteristically  Hellenic  is  the  perception,  hardly 
surmised  by  multitudes  of  students  of  the  physical 
world,  that  the  object  of  knowledge  is  not  a  world 
separate  from  man,  and  cannot  be,  but  is  the  permea- 
tion of  the  data  of  sense  by  thought,  the  transforma- 
tion of  the  formless  into  that  which  is  purely  human, 
the  translation  of  the  assumed  material  into  soul, 
while  the  actual  nature  of  things  is,  as  far  as  obser- 
vational science  goes,  not  even  a  problem;  as  the 
fathers  of  our  culture  were  content  to  win  the  human 
from  the  presumably  irrational,  which  they  left  not 
unrecognized,  but  unregarded.  Of  their  spirit  also 
is  the  corollary,  that  whatever  our  intelligence  may 
appropriate  and  transform  is  for  man's  enlargement, 
has  its  end  in  his  well-being  and  development,  and 
science  is  the  inventive  and  reconstructive  minister 
to  human  worth  and  beauty  and  joy.  The  unfolding 
of  the  universe  accessible  to  man  is  man's  inner  un- 
folding, continual  appropriation  and  completion  of 
the  world  by  soul.  The  opposite  temper,  so  prevalent 
in  our  day,  the  groveling  worship,  in  the  name  of 
science,  of  a  fancied  something  that  is  external  and 
mechanical,  as  if  mechanism  were  not  a  provisional 


42  THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

invention  by  the  human  intellect  for  the  appropria- 
tion of  the  world,  is  our  most  revered  barbarism. 

Science,  when  faithful  to  its  source,  finds  its  con- 
quest of  the  world  an  invitation  into  the  most  ex- 
quisite of  the  Hellenic  mysteries.  As  the  world  reveals 
rationality  within  the  range  of  intellectual  demands, 
so  feeling  and  will  are  projected  there,  and  nature,  so 
far  as  accessible  to  soul,  becomes  a  cosmos  of  living 
beings,  vitally  responsive  to  normal  imagination. 

Natural  science  is  not  merely  the  investigation  of 
nature.  It  is  man's  investigation  of  nature.  The  task 
excludes  indeed  every  unnecessary  postulate,  is  ob- 
livious for  the  time  being  of  every  question  that  may 
precede  or  follow,  ruthless  of  result  favorable  or  un- 
favorable to  human  values.  But  just  by  these  self- 
restraints,  man  the  investigator  asserts  his  manhood, 
and  sets  all  things  under  his  feet.  In  this  procedure 
the  method  is  more  Hellenic  than  we  have  recognized, 
and  needs  to  be  made  still  more  Hellenic.  The  Greeks 
taught  the  human  race  inductive  and  analytic  think- 
ing. Their  short-comings  in  such  thinking  were  lacks 
unavoidable,  in  the  beginnings  of  science,  of  the  data 
and  instruments  of  analysis,  induction,  and  experi- 
ment. Modern  science,  with  all  its  enlargements  and 
rectifications  of  their  procedures,  works  by  no  novum 
organum.    The  instrument  of  knowledge  which  bears 


MODERN  HELLENISM  43 

that  name  was  the  repudiation  of  medieval  for  classic 
method.  But  the  correction  was  partial,  and  before 
there  could  be  the  expected  progress  in  science,  the 
inductive  genius  which  was  recovered  from  the  Greeks 
had  to  be  supplemented  by  their  scientific  imagination, 
their  genial  power  of  rational  hypothesis  for  induction 
to  work  upon.  Of  the  scope  and  regulation  of  this 
principle  we  have  still  much  to  learn  from  them.  If 
our  inheritance  of  culture  decays  this  power  must 
decay,  and  the  science  which  disregards  the  Hellenism 
upon  which  it  unconsciously  depends  must  become 
exhausted,  or  at  least  be  turned  into  less  serviceable 
courses. 

It  is  our  duty  to  regain  the  Greek  comprehension 
of  the  relation  of  science  to  other  potencies  of  the  soul. 
Urania  dwells  not  apart  from  Terpsichore,  The 
muses  nine,  each  in  the  unrestricted  freedom  of  her 
task,  form  one  exquisite  sorority,  one  rhythm  of 
beauty,  one  harmony  of  exultant  greeting  to  the 
consummate  source  of  light. 

The  humanizing  of  our  science  in  the  service  of 
social  conditions  is  in  the  Hellenic  conviction  that  all 
things  are  to  be  learned  and  mastered  for  the  develop- 
ment of  the  human.  To  the  Greek,  human  life  meant 
social  life.  The  social  passion  is  both  Hellenic  and 
Christian.     But  its  problems  must  be  regarded  as 


44  THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

fundamental  interests  of  our  inherited  culture,  if  the 
final,  Christian  unriddling  of  them  is  to  find  practical 
applications. 

The  Hellenic  social  inheritance,  unrecovered  by  the 
renaissance  of  the  fifteenth  century,  has  but  just 
come  to  rebirth.  Our  anti-social  monsters  seek  to 
devour  it  in  its  Heraklean  cradle,  and  its  earhest  task 
is  to  strangle  them.  The  genius  of  that  elder  day  con- 
fronts our  barbaric  luxury  and  lust  of  Persian  things; 
our  bigness,  with  insolence  of  being  big;  the  toil  of 
the  many  unremunerated  by  the  beautiful  and  ra- 
tional; the  all  but  absence  of  a  public  life  of  festal 
character,  amid  noble  creations  of  art  continually 
impressing  the  minds  of  all;  the  dull,  hard,  squalid 
joylessness  of  those  who  are  caught  in  the  grinding 
wheels  of  our  industrialism.  Our  inheritance  in- 
dignantly demands  a  universal  social  life  that  shall 
be  free,  rich,  beautiful,  of  well-ordered,  self-restrained 
buoyancy  of  soul. 

It  is  possible  to  recover  the  elements  of  our  heritage 
while  missing  the  life  of  it.  The  parts  are  of  value  only 
in  their  vital  unity.  The  man  of  culture  sees  life  in 
this  wholeness.  He  has  grasped  the  essential  of  the 
inheritance,  whether  he  is  so  fortunate  as  to  learn  it 
from  its  original  forms,  most  representative  and 
plastic,   or  as  it  appears,  no  less  genuinely,  in  its 


MODERN   HELLENISM  45 

derivatives.  The  light  of  it  exposes  the  crudenesses 
and  barbarisms  that  beset  our  present  conditions,  the 
shameless  purposes  that  deny  inner  values  and  de- 
form every  institution.  From  his  eyes  fall  the  scales 
of  an  alien  traditionalism,  from  his  limbs  drop  the 
fetters  of  repressive  convention,  from  his  nerves 
pass  the  fever,  fret,  and  restlessness,  the  devastating 
curse  of  modern  life.  He  enters  luminous  amplitudes. 
All  the  more  of  value  is  disclosed  to  him  in  the  legit- 
imate developments  of  our  time.  He  appreciates 
them  as  from  that  abiding  source  of  good,  penetrates 
their  essential  worths,  knows  why  they  are,  how  they 
came  to  be,  and  what  normalities  they  may  serve.  He 
is  efficient  above  other  types,  master  of  his  own  time. 
But  he  loses  the  favor  of  the  Olympians  if  he  desires 
to  recover  the  universal  inheritance  just  for  himself, 
or  for  a  class;  if  he  seeks  it  in  his  own  exceptional 
fortunes,  not  in  his  participation,  sympathetic  and 
efficient,  in  the  common  lot.  Then  he  becomes  false 
to  the  democratic,  universal  nature  of  this  good,  and 
also  false  to  more  austere  obligations  from  another 
source.  To  know  this  heritage  vitally  is  to  see  that 
its  inmost  spirit  claims  to  be  the  spontaneous  joy  and 
enfranchised  progress  of  the  common  people.  For 
they  are  Hellenic  of  heart.  This  is  the  goal  to  which 
they  are  striving,  though  often  by  ways  that  lead 


46  THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

nowhither.  They  respond  to  the  presentation  of  this 
ideal;  therefore  the  man  of  culture  penetrates  this 
heritage  of  life  with  conscious  purpose  broadly  to 
impart  it,  and  to  direct  its  resurgences  to  a  life  of  men 
generally,  which  shall  be  free,  rich,  beautiful,  of  well- 
ordered,  self-restrained  buoyancy  of  soul. 

The  chaos  of  industrial  strifes  must  turn  to  this 
ideal  for  direction.  The  implicit  demand  of  the 
world's  toilers,  in  their  intensifying  rage,  is  not,  as 
calumniators  of  humanity  blasphemously  assert,  de- 
bauchery and  lust,  nor  the  smug  creature  comfort  of 
the  bourgeois  Philistine,  whom  the  craftsman  abhors; 
not  any  external  condition  nor  rhetorical  abstraction; 
but  just  real  Hving  in  the  world,  life  of  the  only  civil- 
ization possible  to  the  Occident  at  least.  By  this 
aim  reformatory  social  energies  are  unified.  By  this 
as  the  first  test,  are  to  be  judged  the  proffered  social 
remedies.  Do  they  regard  conditions  merely  or  the 
heightening  of  life?  By  this  as  the  first  test,  present 
conditions  must  be  estimated.  Are  they  producing 
and  distributing  wealth  for  the  interior  wealth  of 
every  kind  of  man?  How  far  are  they  capable  of 
securing  equal  and  abundant  access  to  this  physical 
and  mental  good,  that  demands,  compels,  and  utilizes 
conditions,  which  are  important  to  it  as  conditions 
and  only  as  conditions? 


MODERN  HELLENISM  47 

From  one  social  extreme  to  the  other  this  funda- 
mental reconstruction  is  necessary.  At  the  baser 
extreme  it  is  so  difficult  to  inculcate  that  it  may  have 
to  force  its  way  there;  because  there  the  barbarisms 
are  not  regarded  as  enemies  to  be  overcome,  but  are 
rapacities  to  be  gratified,  distinctions  to  be  inhumanly 
vain  of;  and  because  counterfeits  of  culture  delude 
minds  perverted  by  blatant  successes  and  debauched 
by  ignoble  exploitations;  so  that  our  civilization  may 
be  forced  to  reassert  itself  from  the  social  depths. 
Yet  all  contributors  to  civilization,  from  laborer  to 
capitaHst,  may  find  the  implicit  object  of  their  striving 
in  an  industrial  organism  of  mankind  made  possible 
by  the  Hellenic  aim. 

In  the  energy  of  this  inheritance,  ministry  to  the 
common  people  unites  with  their  own  groping  as- 
pirations. There  is  the  growth  of  the  city  beautiful, 
its  beauty  most  militant  among  the  warrens  of  pov- 
erty. There  is  the  passion  to  bring  the  vital  worths 
to  the  most  destitute,  not  only  through  decorous  en- 
vironments, but  also  through  music  and  plastic  art, 
through  athletic  exercise  and  rhythmical  recreation, 
through  various  introductions  to  the  world  of  wider 
thought  and  more  deeply  apprehended  loveliness. 
In  these  beatitudes  the  Christian  compassions  and 
ideals  are  indeed  supreme  inspiration,  yet  the  Hellenic 


48  THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

alliance  is  essential,  clearly  to  think  out  and  prac- 
tically to  work  out  that  ministry  in  which  the  two 
inheritances  are  at  one. 

Our  inheritance  of  culture  is  belligerent  against 
every  human  limitation  and  distress.  Conditions 
that  make  impracticable  anything  but  brutishness, 
accursed  exploitations  of  these  conditions,  criminality 
with  obscene  privileges  of  self-propagation,  war  in 
field  or  mill  or  market-place,  against  nation  or  class 
or  woman  or  child,  intemperance  and  every  other 
bestiality,  prostitution's  flaunting  hell,  will  disappear 
only  when  our  civilization  is  so  urgent  of  its  own  worth 
that  it  can  no  longer  endure  them.  As  the  social 
interactions,  that  grow  continually  closer  and  wider, 
no  longer  permit  the  more  favored  to  put  these  evils 
out  of  sight,  though  they  exist  in  an  oriental  city  or  an 
African  wilderness,  civilization  cannot  endure  to  con- 
tinue along  with  them,  but  must  indefatigably  enter- 
prise against  them.  The  finest  aims  clarify  and  in- 
tensify themselves  in  the  conflict.  As  the  redemptive 
mission  of  Christianity  is  conditioned  upon  the  deep- 
ening realization  of  her  celestial  nature,  so  civilization, 
in  its  warfare  both  preventive  and  curative,  must  ever 
learn  more  deeply  the  developing  power  of  her  in- 
heritance. 

The  public  school,  the  school  of  the  people,  the  most 


MODERN  HELLENISM  49 

evident  at  least  of  the  instruments  of  our  culture,  is 
becoming  more  aware  of  its  heritage.  Its  sins  against 
civilization  have  been  grosser  than  its  trangressions 
against  Christianity,  alleged  by  ecclesiastical  enemies. 
Its  iniquities  include  the  rampant  Philistinism  of  its 
mechanical  drudgeries  and  soulless  repressions  of 
individuality.  The  recognized  need  of  vocational 
training,  under  present  industrial  conditions,  tends 
against  these  barbarisms,  in  its  stimulation  of  personal 
powers  for  social  ends.  Yet  the  movement  is  pregnant 
with  individual  repressions  and  social  demoraliza- 
tions unless  directed  by  the  conviction  that  every 
man's  vocation,  manual  or  other,  must  be  united  with 
universal  interests;  that  the  personal  instruments 
of  progress  need  largeness  of  life  to  accomplish  their 
special  functions  in  the  world's  tasks;  that  men  cannot 
be  efficient  hands  unless  they  are  clear  brains,  joyous 
hearts,  and  magnanimous  purposes.  The  best  of 
our  pubhc  school  teachers,  those  obscurely  greatest 
educators  of  our  time,  are  seeking  to  combine  the 
necessities  of  a  stern  industrial  system  with  the 
broader  interests,  which  can  make  the  present  form 
of  that  regime  endurable,  and  lead  society  to  human- 
ized conditions.  Their  type  of  education,  in  its  com- 
bination of  the  practicable  and  the  ideal,  with  its 
acceptance  of  the  requirements  of  a  transient  phase 


50  THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

of  social  progress,  and  its  transformation  of  them  into 
opportunities  for  the  development  of  the  universally 
human,  extends  its  enterprise  beyond  children  and 
youth  into  every  age,  especially  among  the  newer 
elements  of  our  population. 

As  the  beneficent  results  appear,  the  burden  of 
resourceless  compassion  is  lifted  from  our  hearts. 
It  is  changed  into  the  inspiration  of  social  benefit, 
to  those  especially  who  suffer  disillusion  upon  our 
shores,  who  endure  barbarous  repressions  of  freedom, 
gladness  and  beauty,  by  the  coarsening  and  blighting 
materialism  of  our  industries.  In  these  disinherited 
their  heredity  abides,  its  forces  spring  up  invincible 
against  the  most  obdurate  repressions,  and  the  hearts 
of  the  lowly  respond  to  the  finer  things.  It  is  a  might- 
ier struggle  than  Marathon,  this  conflict  between 
modern  barbarism,  baser  satraps  than  Artaphernes 
at  its  head,  and  the  spirit  of  our  inheritance  of  civili- 
zation, asserting  itself  in  the  Hellenic  heart  of  the 
people.  Their  victory  must  indeed  be  fought  out  by 
industrial,  commercial  and  political  forces,  in  alli- 
ance with  the  healings  and  inventions  of  science,  but 
by  these  powers  as  humanized  by  the  immortal 
genius  of  our  culture,  and  directed  not  to  material 
things  except  as  instruments  of  the  enfranchised 
soul. 


MODERN   HELLENISM  5 1 

Culture,  like  religion,  when  disappointed  in  its 
normal  leadership  may  spring  up  from  the  heart  of 
the  people.  Yet  this  impulse  comes  to  fruition  when 
the  normal  leadership  is  shamed  back  into  its  proper 
work.  As  religion  organizes  itself  into  an  institution, 
the  church,  so  civiUzation  has  its  representative  insti- 
tution, the  university.  In  the  American  system  of 
higher  education  the  university  includes  the  college, 
whether  formally  and  locally  related  or  not  to  the 
more  imposing  body.  As  the  church  must  endure 
pitiless  inquisition  into  its  stewardship,  so  the  univer- 
sity stands  ever  accountable  for  the  administration 
of  our  cultural  inheritance.  CiviHzation's  Judgment 
arraigns  the  university  first,  as  religion's  judgment 
begins  at  the  house  of  God.  The  unillumined  by 
rehgion  are  the  judges  of  the  one:  the  disinherited  of 
culture  form  the  tribunal  of  the  other. 

The  university  is  not  to  be  blamed  for  assigning  a 
less  prominent  place  than  formerly  to  the  humanities. 
This  change  is  of  the  classic  spirit  in  its  subordination 
of  every  realm  to  the  expanding  life  of  man.  The 
aims  of  the  curriculum  must  be  broadly  vocational, 
rather  than  cultural  in  the  separative,  contemplative, 
and  aristocratic  connotations  of  that  word.  For  these 
practical  and  vital  aims  belong  to  our  civilization's 
original    energy.      SpeciaHzation    serves    culture    by 


52  THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

preparing  each  man  for  his  own  function  in  the  social 
order.  The  enormous  expansion  of  things  to  be 
known  enforces  the  self-restraint  of  intellectual  mod- 
esty, which  is  not  the  least  valuable  element  of  our 
inheritance.  But  the  American  university  in  general 
deals  too  much  with  detached  things,  too  little  mindful 
of  their  mutual  relations,  their  functionings  in  unity 
of  thought,  enjoyment  and  purpose,  separated  from 
which  they  are  barbarisms.  A  university  does  not 
deserve  its  name  by  teaching  everything  possible, 
but  only  when  it  teaches  each  thing  as  in  the  universal, 
in  the  symmetry  of  the  one  culture. 

University  faculties  have  sloughed  off  superficial 
pretenders  to  a  straggling  scholarship.  But  this 
gain  is  canceled  when  there  appear  in  their  places 
men  of  a  scholarship  as  spurious,  which  is  ignorant 
of  its  relations,  therefore  ignorant  of  its  own  signifi- 
cance. Such  persons  may  have  their  use  in  contrib- 
uting certain  materials  to  be  vitalized  by  real  men; 
but  at  best  they  are  Gibeonites,  hewers  of  wood  and 
drawers  of  water  for  the  children  of  the  inheritance. 
Their  aloofness  from  wider  interests  tends  to  bring 
the  professorial  title  into  popular  disrepute,  while  no 
man  is  more  honored  by  all  than  he  who  devotes 
specialized  knowledge  to  the  general  progress.  To 
the  perverted  specialization,  religion  is  either  unin- 


MODERN   HELLENISM  53 

fluenced  by  thought,  or  there  issue  from  these  men, 
not  the  searching  criticisms  made  by  their  broader 
colleagues,  but  superficial  and  indiscriminate  assaults 
upon  faith.  Such  teachers  stamp  their  barbarism 
upon  their  pupils.  Of  institutions  so  infected  it  is 
said,  "They  impart  education,  but  not  culture." 
The  last  half  of  the  judgment  is  correct. 

Such  influence  reinforces  the  vulgarities  of  an  age 
whose  material  progress  has  commercialism  as  its 
obverse.  Higher  education  in  America  especially 
has  become  to  multitudes  of  students  the  means  of 
that  which  is  pronounced  success  by  the  crowd  in 
its  baser  moods.  To  this  degeneracy  the  loyal  rep- 
resentatives of  culture  in  our  faculties  are  indignant 
witnesses.  Said  one  of  the  most  revered  teachers  of 
his  generation  to  a  former  pupil:  "It  is  not  now  as 
when  your  class,  in  so  large  a  proportion,  gave  itself 
to  the  fundamental  questions  of  life  and  mind  for 
their  own  sake.  The  commercialism  of  the  time  has 
infected,  permeated  student  life.  The  college  course 
is  generally  regarded  as  the  way  to  commercial 
success.  Against  such  enemies  one  has  to  champion 
the  soul." 

With  the  most  barbaric  of  contemporary  barbar- 
isms many  a  college  and  university  has  contracted 
entanghng  alliances.    Learning's  title  to  the  world's 


54  THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

wealth  is  the  subHmely  beneficent  use  of  it.  Because 
of  the  university's  material  contributions  alone,  the 
silver  and  the  gold  are  hers,  and  the  cattle  upon  a 
thousand  plains.  This  claim  is  most  respected  when 
sustained  with  unimportunate  dignity.  For  the 
university  to  accept  its  orders  from  wealth  is  only 
less  shameful  than  for  the  church  to  grovel  before 
plutocracy.  Plato's  Academy  would  have  accom- 
plished little  for  mankind  if  Tissaphernes  had  been 
president  of  the  board  of  trustees.  It  is  unfortunately 
incorrect,  however  agreeable,  to  say  that  institutions 
of  learning  financially  dependent  upon  the  makers  of 
monopoly  are  unaffected  by  their  patrons'  judgments, 
tastes  and  aims.  One  proof  to  the  contrary  is  the 
complaisant  silence  of  many  colleges,  universities, 
and  their  faculties,  before  the  current  economic  and 
social  issues  that  involve  plutocratic  interests.  They 
leave  the  defense  of  our  civilization's  most  precious 
rights  to  those  less  qualified  for  the  task,  and  serve 
the  honors  of  culture  to  her  deadliest  enemies.  As 
the  church  must  be  church  miUtant  against  spiritual 
evil,  so  the  true  university  is  university  militant 
against  the  hosts  of  barbarism. 

Heavy  is  the  responsibility  of  the  American  uni- 
versity, for  the  conflict  between  civilization  and  bar- 
barism has  its  storm-center  in  our  land.     We  have 


MODERN  HELLENISM  55 

seen  the  fair  beginnings  of  an  idealistic  national  litera- 
ture overwhelmed  by  the  stolid,  squalid  realisms  of  the 
last  half  century.  Now  the  elastic  forces  of  culture  are 
rising  again,  notably  in  the  plastic  arts  and  philosophy. 
Of  still  deeper  significance  is  the  growing  conscious- 
ness of  learned  men,  that  the  goods  of  intelligence, 
rational  pleasure,  and  ideal  aim  must  win  the  life 
of  the  people;  and  the  response  is  especially  hopeful 
in  the  newer  elements  of  our  population.  In  this 
dignity  of  lowly  ministry  the  American  university 
may  find  her  cultural,  ethical,  and  spiritual  redemp- 
tion. 

The  imperative  of  our  age  is  a  new  Renaissance,  as 
much  deeper  and  more  inclusive  than  that  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  as  different  in  its  forms  to  be 
wrought  by  new  conditions  and  by  the  unfolding  of 
problems  unprecedented.  Not  a  Renaissance  of  art 
or  literature  merely,  but  conscious  fusing  of  every 
activity  and  potency  into  vital  unity,  greater  power, 
broader  scope,  nobler  aim,  unanticipated  conquests 
over  nature,  vaster  organizations  of  human  life, 
amehorations  out  of  the  discipline  of  centuries, 
plastic  accumulations  of  experience;  all  for  the  more 
abundant  inheritance  of  life  free,  rich,  beautiful,  of 
well-ordered,  self-restrained  buoyancy  of  soul,  to  be 
mankind's  universal  Hberation,  as  both  the  original 


56  THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

democratic  genius  and  the  social  passion  of  our  time 
require. 

This  impulse  will  indeed  revive  classical  studies, 
by  methods  less  scholastic,  directed  less  to  the  re- 
stricted discipline  of  a  set  of  mental  faculties,  more 
to  the  invigoration  of  the  universal  sympathies, 
interests,  and  powers.  But  the  classic  revival  must 
not  be  narrowly  construed  in  any  wise,  nor  limited 
to  a  favored  detachment.  The  true  Hellenism  can 
also  be  learned  from  its  modern  developments,  nor  is 
there  a  single  enforced  specialization  in  which  it  is  not 
revealed.  It  is  the  permeation  of  every  task,  pleasure, 
achievement,  and  organization,  with  the  immortal 
genius  of  their  source. 

In  this  renewal  of  humanity  all  may  unite  whose 
hearts  have  been  divinely  touched.  In  tasks  most 
limited  and  obscure  there  may  be  efi&cient  alliance. 
The  man  of  culture  is  he  who  comprehends  his  work 
in  its  relations,  and  so  masters  it  as  to  make  it  a  vitally 
related  component  of  our  inheritance  of  civilization; 
and  in  a  universal  culture  votaries  are  needed  in 
every  work  from  highest  to  lowliest.  And  as,  in 
reUgion,  many  are  Christians  who  are  ignorant  that 
their  life  is  of  Christ,  so  in  culture  many  walk  with 
the  risen  and  immortal  spirit  of  Plato,  their  eyes 
holden,  but  hearts  burning  within  them  as  he  talks 


MODERN  HELLENISM  57 

with  them  by  the  way.  To  these  also  may  be  made 
known  the  power,  which  shall  then  send  them  forth 
exultant,  to  proclaim  that  the  ancient  Hfe  is  risen 
again,  to  be  the  unmonopoHzed  heritage  that  redeems, 
transforms,  completes,  and  harmonizes  every  secular 
task,  and  natural  pleasure,  and  world-completing 
impulse  of  advancing  humanity. 

The  two  great  inheritances  are  at  one  against  the 
common  enemy,  at  one  in  their  insistence  upon  the 
soul.  In  this  mutual  recognition,  many  of  their 
former  antagonisms  are  allayed,  though  for  a  sterner 
competition  for  the  leadership  of  humanity.  Through 
a  part  of  their  course  at  least,  our  civilization  and 
Christianity  walk  together,  and  their  institutional 
representatives  move  on  shoulder  to  shoulder  up  the 
heights.  As  the  university  is  converted  from  its 
detachments,  to  the  organism  of  culture,  and  to  the 
accordance  of  all  her  disciplines  in  that  harmony, 
she  becomes  more  receptive  to  the  absolute  unity 
which  our  religion  claims  to  be.  Yet  in  the  alliance 
of  our  two  inheritances  lies  peril  to  each.  The  rights 
of  our  inherited  civilization  as  against  Christianity, 
and  the  right  of  Christianity  as  against  our  civiliza- 
tion, must  be  adjudicated,  that  neither  may  incur 
detriment,  and  that  each  with  clear  self-consciousness 
may  find  the  other  in  the  unity  indissoluble. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE   RIGHTS   OF   OUR   CIVILIZATION  AS   AGAINST 
CHRISTIANITY 

The  most  important  competitions  are  between 
evolved  historic  forces;  not  between  things  or  in- 
stitutions; not  between  nations  or  races  or  other 
divisions  of  men,  the  outHnes  of  which  change  con- 
tinually, as  their  interests  shift  and  merge;  not  be- 
tween principles  in  the  abstract,  but  between  prin- 
ciples in  their  abiding  concretions.  The  fundamental 
rivalry  of  our  time  is  not  between  classes,  as  rich  and 
poor,  nor  between  generalizations  and  categories,  as 
science  and  religion,  sacred  and  secular,  labor  and 
capital;  but  between  the  two  great  inheritances,  in 
the  one  or  the  other  of  which  every  interest  finds  its 
significance  and  impUcit  aim.  To  phrase  the  basal 
competition  as  between  good  and  evil  is  only  formally 
true.  Good  and  evil  are  abstractions  too,  till  they 
come  to  reality  in  living  issues.  When,  through  dis- 
ciplinary processes,  the  latent  good  in  human  causes 
asserts  itself,  then  these  causes  are  ready  to  have 

S8 


CIVILIZATION  VERSUS   CHRISTIANITY         59 

their  rivalries  adjusted,  for  the  supreme  realization 
of  concrete  good. 

The  beginnings  of  order,  reasonableness,  and  pur- 
pose dawn  upon  our  blindly  controversial  time,  when 
we  see  that  humanity  is  now  groping  after  that  life 
in  the  world  which  is  Hellenic  in  origin  and  nature. 
Much  discipline  is  needed  to  make  the  aim  clear. 
This  is  what  men  seek,  if  their  rages  shall  find  their 
own  meaning,  by  ill-considered  strikes  and  labor  riots, 
by  Utopian  dream  and  anarchistic  destructiveness. 
This  is  the  cause  of  revolts  against  the  church,  as 
actually  or  supposedly  obstructing  the  currents  of 
life.  Hence  come  atheisms.  Heaven-defying  blas- 
phemies, assaults  upon  the  foundations  of  social 
order  and  personal  character.  In  such  a  charity  is 
to  be  interpreted  the  irreligion  and  license  among 
the  world's  toilers.  Every  repression  of  these  im- 
pulses, whose  antisocial  expression  belies  their  na- 
ture, and  must  for  their  own  sake  be  repressed, 
every  attempt  to  cheat  them  of  their  impHcit  desire, 
to  misdirect  them,  to  keep  them  in  impotent  isolation 
from  one  another,  postpones  their  discovery  of  the 
aim  that  purifies  them,  and  of  their  legitimate  alle- 
giance which  unites  them  under  their  invincible 
standard.  When  this  implicit  purpose  is  compre- 
hended, the  two  inheritances,  confronting  one  another. 


6o  THE  CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

may  see  the  ground  of  warfare  annulled,  and  arbitra- 
tions of  patient  wisdom  may  discover  for  both  the 
uniting  cause,  end,  and  energy. 

But  how  is  a  division  of  rights  possible  between 
these  two  forces?  In  no  realm  can  either  concede  the 
other's  monarchy  without  violating  its  own  funda- 
mental impulse,  without  disloyalty  to  the  normal 
interests  it  holds  in  trust.  There  is  nothing  so  secular 
that  our  rehgion  does  not  demand  to  infuse  it,  nothing 
so  religious  that  our  culture  can  forbear  to  assert 
itself  in  it.  "Business  is  business,"  "One  world  at  a 
time,"  "Jesus  of  Nazareth,  what  have  we  to  do  with 
Thee!" — these  exclusions  are  as  impossible  for  Chris- 
tianity to  tolerate,  as  the  ecclesiastic's  demand  for 
an  authority  above  reason  is  repugnant  to  the  ac- 
cumulated forces  of  our  civilization.  All  such  de- 
limitations, in  individual  assertions,  or  social  relations, 
or  national  or  international  affairs,  are  continually 
obliterated.  All  such  concessions  rouse  fiercer  aggres- 
sions. 

The  answer  is  evident:  it  is  a  division  not  of  field 
but  of  function.  In  every  realm  of  act  and  thought 
each  power  has  its  own  right  to  maintain,  its  own 
nature  to  unfold;  in  a  word,  its  own  function. 

Attempts  at  dehmitation  of  realm  are  natural 
enough.     These  are  the  divisions  obvious  to  super- 


CIVILIZATION   VERSUS   CHRISTIANITY         6 1 

ficiality.  What  so  simple  as  that  two  powers  which 
have  difficulty  in  adjusting  their  respective  claims 
should  part  company,  Abraham  for  the  Hill  Country, 
Lot  for  the  cities  of  the  Plain!  From  what  inunda- 
tions of  complexities  is  one  safeguarded  who  divides 
himself  into  water-tight  compartments!  What  a 
rehef  to  have  either  our  faith,  our  agnosticism,  or  our 
atheism  let  alone!  Smug  the  satisfactions  of  the 
fortunate  individual,  the  superior  social  class,  the 
prosperous  nation,  the  generation  that  keeps  its 
favorite  complacencies  from  intrusions  of  fact  and 
reflection.  How  are  churchmanship  and  statesman- 
ship simplified!  Famihar  analogies  assist, — state  and 
national  boundaries,  houselots,  divorce  laws.  These 
parcellings,  with  their  favorite  distinction,  the  rehgious 
and  the  secular,  pass  for  clear  thinking.  They  are 
futile  attempts  to  exclude  thought;  and  across  the 
boundary  lines,  into  the  vacuous  domains,  all  forces 
of  thought  and  life  rush  to  fierce  encounters. 

But  the  distinction  of  function  in  every  realm  of 
life  has  advantages  as  welcome  to  f orcefulness  as  they 
are  repugnant  to  mental  and  moral  indolence.  In 
such  distinctions  one  may  really  think  and  live,  one's 
whole  being  impKcitly  operant  every  moment,  in 
every  detail  of  action,  according  to  the  due  measure 
of  every  functioning.    Function  works  with  function 


62  THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

in  subordinations,  organizations,  and  leaderships  of 
life,  which  is  then  fundamentally  and  progressively 
harmonized.  According  to  the  thoroughness  of  the 
division  of  function  is  the  efl&cient  cooperation  of  all 
the  powers  of  the  one  soul,  the  one  humanity. 

What  are  the  functional  rights  of  our  civilization  as 
against  Christianity,  in  the  various  realms  where 
both  operate? 

Most  common  has  been  the  assertion  made  in  be- 
half of  science  to  exclusive  appropriation  of  realm. 
Hopeless  self-contradictions  have  resulted.  The 
claim  has  been  forced  to  restrict  itself  to  physical 
science,  with  attempts  to  extend  this  domain,  often 
with  the  assumption  that  the  physical  covers  all  that 
is  to  be  known.  But  science  has  no  test  of  its  own  to 
distinguish  the  physical  from  aught  beyond,  except 
in  the  sense  of  limiting  its  own  undisturbed  procedures, 
nor  can  it  afl&rm  that  there  is  nothing  beyond,  nor 
pronounce  upon  the  ultimate  nature  of  anything  it 
works  upon.  From  no  field  which  has  been  unscientif- 
ically claimed  for  its  exclusive  possession  is  science 
able  to  exclude  the  poetic  recognition  of  Hfe  in  nature, 
responsive  to  life  in  the  human  soul,  nor  the  vision 
that  the  Heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God  and  the 
firmament  showeth  His  handiwork,  nor  that  distinc- 
tively Christian  view  of  the  world  of  which  the  deepest 


CIVILIZATION   VERSUS   CHRISTIANITY         63 

expression  is  in  the  words  of  Jesus:  "Not  a  sparrow 
falleth  to  the  ground  without  your  Father."  Here  is 
a  purely  Christian  conception  of  the  all-inclusive 
power,  with  a  relation  to  its  work  that  is  Christianly 
conceived,  and  that  involves  a  distinctively  Christian 
attitude  to  this  power  and  its  creatures.  Whether 
one  or  all  of  these  conceptions  can  be  maintained,  is 
a  question  which  our  science  can  neither  answer  nor 
silence. 

The  rights  to  be  accorded  to  science  are  not  of 
realm  but  of  function.  The  right  of  any  function  is 
not  diminished  because  it  is  related  to  others,  and 
works  with  them  to  the  construction  of  soul,  humanity, 
universe.  When  the  exclusive  claim  of  science  to  any 
realm  is  surrendered  there  is  ample  recompense  in  the 
extension  of  inviolable  privilege  into  all  realms,  for  in 
every  field  observations  must  be  taken,  facts  collated, 
classified,  and  reduced  to  continuous  processes,  with- 
out help  or  hindrance  from  any  prejudice  or  any  worth. 
The  function  of  science  extends  into  every  variety  of 
religious  experience  and  into  every  historic  manifesta- 
tion of  the  spiritual.  Its  critical  analysis  has  its  place 
beside  the  dying  saint's  rapturous  vision,  beside 
Stephen  seeing  the  Heavens  opened  and  the  Son  of 
Man  standing  at  the  right  hand  of  God,  beside  Jesus 
Himself  in  his  profoundest   overwhelmings  by   the 


64  THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

Father's  love.  It  sentinels  His  tomb,  cross-examines 
the  witnesses  to  His  resurrection,  weighing  the  evi- 
dence without  regard  to  the  passionate  hopes  and 
fears  that  await  the  verdict.  It  has  no  faith  nor  un- 
behef;  it  is  indifferent  to  moral  interests,  insensible 
to  the  doom  or  destiny  of  soul,  humanity,  or  universe. 
Indispensable  is  this  implacable  investigation  in  every 
realm,  where  it  delivers  results  which  must  be  ac- 
credited without  reserve,  for  evaluation  by  other 
functions. 

The  right  of  science  in  Christianity,  often  confused 
with  the  warfare  between  science  and  sundry  dogma- 
tisms, opens  a  still  deeper  functional  cooperation. 
The  right  of  free  investigation  into  the  world  as  it  is, 
is  introductory  to  an  Hellenic  freedom  of  action  in  the 
world  as  it  is  found  to  be. 

It  is  impossible  to  derive  the  whole  range  of  our 
ethic  from  Christianity.  Inquiry  into  the  origin  and 
nature  of  Christianity  makes  evident  the  fact,  that 
its  founder  did  not  contemplate  any  such  social  con- 
ditions as  those  of  our  time,  with  their  pecuhar  de- 
mands upon  conduct.  He  dwelt  in  a  circle  of  interests 
not  directly  related  to  the  ethical  field  of  modern  Ufe. 
The  attempt  to  fulfill  the  importunate  obligations 
of  existing  conditions  by  immediate  appHcation  of  the 
teachings  of  Jesus,  must  either  distort  the  latter,  or 


CIVILIZATION   VERSUS   CHRISTIANITY         65 

leave  the  vast  complication  of  modern  life  a  moral 
anarchy.  But  the  ethic  which  we  inherit  from  the 
founders  of  our  culture  was  formed  in  a  civilization 
essentially  the  same  now  as  then,  genetically  one  in  all 
its  evolving  course.  The  principles  are  at  a  different 
stage  of  development;  their  applications  are  for  a 
different  aspect  of  civilization;  but  the  principles  in 
their  present  form  are  normally  unfolded  for  a  world 
of  culture  similarly  conceived. 

Yet  the  free  functioning  of  our  cultural  ethic  cannot 
be  an  exclusive  appropriation  of  the  field  of  conduct. 
For  there  are  moral  issues  of  our  day  no  more  antici- 
pated by  the  founders  of  our  civilization  than  Jesus 
and  His  disciples  forecast  its  issues  of  another  range. 
The  spiritual  consciousness  inherited  from  Jesus, 
different  from  our  cultural  consciousness  in  ends, 
grounds,  and  informing  principle,  connotes  a  radically 
different  moral  consciousness,  end,  ground,  and  in- 
forming principle,  for  every  element  of  activity  out- 
ward and  inward.  In  every  field  of  modern  action, 
in  every  personal  self-realization,  in  every  service  and 
sacrifice,  we  are  in  a  world  unprophesied  by  either 
Hellenic  or  early  Christian.  Unless  one  or  the  other 
of  the  great  inheritances  disappears — an  issue  which 
the  deeper  study  of  them  will  show  to  be  impossible — 
there  must  be  the  free  functioning  of  both  ethical 


66  THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

inheritances  in  the  unity  of  that  which  vindicates  it- 
self as  the  supreme  good. 

Philosophy  as  the  intellectual  construction  of 
reality  has  rights  which  cannot  be  affected  by  any 
form  of  religion,  or  by  anything  outside  the  intellectual 
construction  itself.  Its  processes  are  as  independent 
as  the  methods  of  the  special  sciences.  But  we  no 
longer  expect  to  grasp  reality  by  the  mere  explication 
of  these  processes.  The  data  of  philosophy  include 
all  developed  Hellenic  attainments  and  interests, 
secular  and  religious,  and  in  respect  to  these  its  con- 
structions are  both  regulative  and  subordinate. 
Philosophy  extends  also  over  all  that  belongs  to  our 
unfolded  Semitic  religious  experience,  including  Chris- 
tianity and  the  founder  of  Christianity.  No  claim 
made  in  behalf  of  the  religion  of  Jesus  can  raise  it, 
as  revelation,  above  the  reach  of  our  cultural  philoso- 
phy, or  sink  Christianity,  as  irrationality,  beneath 
it.  The  philosophy  of  religion  cannot  permit  its 
subject-matter  to  hmit  the  methods  of  investigation, 
as  developed  from  the  Hellenic  fathers  of  clear  and 
well-ordered  fundamental  thinking.  But  these  meth- 
ods, regulative  and  inclusive  of  all  the  attainable 
religious  experience  of  mankind,  seek  and  serve  the 
reality  of  that  experience.  Along  these  obvious 
lines  our  inheritance  of  philosophy  finds  the  rights 


CIVILIZATION   VERSUS   CHRISTIANITY        67 

and    limits    of   its    exercise   with   respect   to   Chris- 
tianity. 

When  we  inquire  into  the  right  of  our  inherited 
civilization  in  the  religious  life,  we  face  a  different 
condition  from  that  which  our  culture  meets  in  science, 
conduct,  and  philosophy.  For  these,  in  themselves 
considered,  are  either  elements  of  life  or  reflective 
constructions  of  it :  religion  is  hf e's  wholeness,  includes 
and  energizes  ail.  In  no  rehgious  experience  can  two 
ultimate  rehgious  principles  tolerate  one  another. 
One  religion  may  receive  thoughts  and  achievements 
from  another,  but  it  does  so  in  order  to  change  them 
radically,  to  set  them  to  a  use  transcendent  of  their 
original  aims.  The  all-inclusive  is  all-exclusive.  A 
reUgion  which  does  not  assert  its  absoluteness  forfeits 
the  right  to  be  considered.  Syncretism  is  a  self- 
contradiction.  The  syncretistic  overtures  of  Oriental 
religions  to  Christianity  are  invitations  to  a  suicide 
pact.  The  attempt  to  form  a  religious  consciousness 
from  the  elements  of  various  rehgions  is  the  surrender 
of  religion  to  that  other  power  which  undertakes  the 
synthesis,  and  is  the  denial  of  religion's  very  nature 
as  Ufe  in  its  completeness.  The  character  of  each 
religion  so  manipulated  is  caricatured,  for  every 
religion  that  can  offer  itself  to  the  world  asserts  itself 
as  universal  principle,  all-pervasive  Spirit,  absolutely 


68  THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

jealous  God.  Yet  the  freest  search  is  by  no  means 
precluded  into  the  nature  of  religion,  in  order  to  attain 
religion's  final  principle,  which  may  or  may  not  be 
identical  with  any  existing  faith.  These  reflections 
become  concrete  when  the  self-witness  of  Christianity 
is  regarded.  Christianity  must  be  either  entirely 
accepted  or  entirely  rejected  in  its  essential  nature. 
It  repudiates  any  syncretistic  concession.  Whatever 
contribution  it  accepts  (and  it  claims  all  things) 
it  receives  that  it  may  transform. 

Just  for  these  reasons  our  cultural  inheritance  has 
its  inviolable  religious  rights.  Its  primal  right  is  to 
have  its  own  religious  claim  considered.  For  we  in- 
herit in  our  civilization,  as  truly  as  in  our  Christianity, 
a  religious  conception  of  the  universe,  a  religious 
wholeness  of  thought  and  being.  Our  civilization 
has  endured  because  it  is  not  fragment  but  vital 
organization.  Thus  our  culture  and  Christianity 
are  in  sharpest  mutual  antagonism  in  the  religious 
realm,  therefore  in  all  realms.  And  unless  some 
spiritual  consciousness  deeper  than  either  conquers 
both  (and  this  is  all  but  inconceivable,  for  no  such 
consciousness  has  germinated  in  the  Western  world, 
to  which  the  deepest  Oriental  faiths  are  in  opposition) 
there  can  be  no  peace  between  these  twain  till  one 
destroys  the  other  or  transubstantiates  it. 


CIVILIZATION  VERSUS   CHRISTIANITY        69 

The  essential  nature  of  the  religion  of  our  cultural 
inheritance  can  be  best  comprehended  in  its  funda- 
mental contrast  with  Christianity.  To  that  our 
course  of  thought  has  not  yet  come.  But  the  re- 
flections already  made  disclose  a  single,  persistent 
religious  consciousness,  fundamentally,  implicitly  uni- 
versal, unfolding  in  the  whole  range  of  our  Hellenic- 
Roman  civilization.  We  recognize  this  one  vision  in 
the  elder  poets  of  Greece,  in  her  dramatists,  and  in 
the  thinkers  of  all  her  schools,  however  divergent. 
We  perceive  that  this  religion,  even  in  its  finest  forms, 
is  the  explication  of  that  which  lay  deepest  in  the 
hearts  of  the  people.  If  aspirations  of  a  different  na- 
ture seemed  to  enter  a  universe  otherwise  conceived, 
as  by  Plato  or  Plotinus,  these  are  either  extravaga- 
tions,  from  which  the  Hellenic  spirit  returned,  or  they 
are  pronounced,  by  a  deeper  appreciation,  to  be  the 
larger  unf  oldings  of  the  Hellenic  genius  and  essentially 
true  to  its  nature.  The  modern  revivals  of  the  an- 
cient culture,  begun  in  secularities  however  absorbing, 
or  exploited  by  the  church,  unfold  their  own  inevitable 
religious  consciousness. 

It  Is  a  frivolous  assertion,  unworthy  the  eminent  dis- 
ciples of  an  imposing  religious  genius,  that  Christian- 
ity is  the  only  religion  which  the  world  can  consider 
seriously,  that  the  only  alternative  is  Christianity 


70  THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

or  no  religion  at  all.  Such  an  assertion,  to  be  fair, 
must  compare  the  essential  spirit  of  Christianity 
with  the  essential  spirit  of  other  faiths.  For  religious 
competitions  are  between  ultimate  principles,  as 
energizings  of  life  in  its  completeness.  They  are  rival- 
ries of  universe  against  universe.  They  are  competing 
organizations  of  all  that  is.  Against  such  a  Christian- 
ity such  a  Buddhism  will  assert  itself  in  vain,  unless  the 
Occident  experiences  at  length  the  Orient's  universal 
disillusion.  But  against  the  inmost  spirit  of  Chris- 
tianity there  is  persistently  competitive  a  religion 
essentially  of  the  spirit  in  which  the  fathers  of  our 
civilization  worshipped  reverently  and  lived  achiev- 
ingly. 

This  religion  can  be  powerfully  affected  by  Chris- 
tianity and  yet  remain  essentially  anti-Christian. 
Surely  no  devout  soul  that  has  learned  of  Jesus  can 
fail  to  be  profoundly  influenced  by  Him.  But  it  is 
possible  in  all  honesty  to  accept  many  things  from 
Jesus'  life,  teachings,  personality,  unfolding  of  His 
historic  influence,  and  yet  to  put  them  to  the  service 
of  a  life  and  aim  essentially  different  from  His.  Multi- 
tudes do  this  unconsciously;  many,  better  instructed, 
with  a  clarifying  of  definite  intent;  up  to  those  who 
know  and  teach  a  religion  which  gratefully  receives 
from  Jesus  purity,  devotion,  and  compassion,  beyond 


CIVILIZATION  VERSUS   CHRISTIANITY        71 

the  devout  pagan  of  the  olden  time,  but  turned  to 
that  universal  conception,  that  inclusive  aim  of  life, 
for  which  the  Galilean  did  not  live  and  die.  This 
is  a  "modern  paganism"  which  is  the  opposite  of  the 
fleshly  and  hideous  decadence  which  usurps  that  title. 
This  Hellenic  life,  free,  rich,  beautiful,  of  well- 
ordered,  self-restrained  buoyancy  of  soul,  a  life 
deepened,  broadened,  disciplined  personally  and  soci- 
ally by  the  experience  of  centuries,  possessor  of  vast 
wealths  which  include  visions,  joys,  energies  of  the 
founder  of  Christianity,  and  developments  from  Him, 
cannot  be  excluded  from  any  realm.  It  is  a  life 
that  permeates  all  interests;  it  is  religious  therefore  in 
its  action  in  all  realms.  Brought  face  to  face  with 
a  radically  different  spiritual  consciousness  it  right- 
eously asserts  itself  in  competition,  nor  can  it  concede 
a  single  one  of  its  own  attainments,  nor  limit  their 
scope.  Its  unlimited  freedom  scorns  an  authority 
external  to  the  human  soul.  Inalienable  are  the  rights 
of  an  exultant  vision  of  a  world  good  and  beautiful, 
its  goodness  and  beauty  to  be  realized  by  humanity's 
self-attainments  and  world-conquests;  right  of  re- 
sponsive joy  to  every  invitation  of  earth  and  sky, 
with  awakenings  of  nobler  gladness  by  the  challenge 
of  resistances  to  be  overcome,  exploited,  and  per- 
meated by  the  soul;  right  of  resolute  action  in  all 


72  THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

conflicts  and  problems,  as  these  unfold,  to  subjugate 
every  condition  to  human  progress;  right  of  the 
invincible  spirit  of  youth,  intensifying  and  deepening 
to  the  last  day  of  mortal  life,  and  expectant  of  new 
worlds  of  conquests  yet  to  be. 

Against  every  repression  and  limitation  these  forces 
rise  with  indignant  mastery.  Against  every  bribe 
of  Heaven  or  threat  of  Hell,  they  are  as  Shelley's 
Prometheus  before  the  futile  wrath  of  Zeus.  Against 
every  voluptuous  soHcitation  of  faith  the  temptress, 
to  find  security  and  rest  in  her  caressing  arms  from 
the  problems,  strifes,  and  agonies  of  real  living,  they 
are  as  Orpheus  rendered  insensible  to  the  song 
of  the  sirens  by  his  own  mightier  harmonies.  The 
only  religious  appeal  except  its  own  to  which  this 
spirit  can  listen  must  accept  the  critical  acumen  of 
its  historical  investigation  and  rational  analysis, 
and  welcome  its  demand  to  hve.  When  an  appeal 
that  fails  of  these  requisites  is  made  in  the  name  of 
Christianity,  we  must  reject  it,  oppose  it,  destroy  it, 
for  the  truth's  sake,  and  for  the  sake  of  men,  who  hve 
by  the  truth,  estimating  any  apparent  or  incidental 
loss  of  character  and  spirituality  to  be  of  small  ac- 
count against  the  higher  good.  A  Christ  that  does 
not  fulfill  this  hfe  in  every  range  of  its  functioning 
cannot  be  the  Lord  of  life.     To  accept  that  Christ 


CIVILIZATION   VERSUS   CHRISTIANITY         73 

is  to  pass  into  condemnation.  The  Christianity  which 
the  religious  demands  of  our  cultural  inheritance  may 
consider  must  not  only  welcome  their  freest  energies, 
but  intensify,  complete,  and  perfect  them. 

Yet  a  Christianity  which  meets  only  such  impera- 
tives is  a  Christianity  of  which  this  spirit  has  no 
need.  For  that  which  would  then  be  ofifered  to  it  is 
within  its  own  implicit  possession.  Why  not  man- 
fully unfold  itself,  not  beggarly  receive  from  another? 
Thus  we  are  brought  to  the  ultimate  demand  which 
our  cultural  inheritance  makes  to  Christianity.  Chris- 
tianity is  challenged  to  open  to  it  a  new  universe, 
before  whose  glory  the  spirit  of  our  civilization  falls 
in  contrite  confession  of  its  own  insuflSciency  and  need. 
If  in  this  new  spiritual  universe,  above  the  attain- 
ment of  our  Hellenic  inheritance  in  its  uttermost  un- 
foldings,  our  civilization,  newborn,  may  fulfill  itself 
by  denying  and  transcending  itself,  then  Christianity 
is  able  to  subdue  us  utterly,  and  Jesus  is  enfranchised 
humanity's  eternal  leader  and  Saviour. 


CHAPTER   VI 

THE   RIGHT   OF   CHRISTIANITY  AS   AGAINST      OUR 
CIVILIZATION 

Christianity's  first  right  is  the  right  to  be  itself. 
However  intertwined  its  history  with  the  develop- 
ments of  our  civilization,  it  keeps  an  underlying  con- 
sciousness of  ineradicable  difference.  When  civiliza- 
tion becomes  most  enfranchised  from  the  interferences 
of  our  religious  inheritance,  triumphantly  asserts  its 
own  rights,  and  is  confident  of  self-sufficiency,  so  that 
an  age  of  brilHant  cultural  progress  seems  ready  to  say 
to  Christianity,  "I  have  no  more  need  of  thee;"  then 
the  Christian  spirit  most  radically  asserts  itself,  un- 
folds its  powers  from  its  own  source,  and  differentiates 
itself  most  clearly  from  the  competitive  inheritance. 

Least  favorable  to  Christianity  are  the  times  of  its 
imperious  intrusions  into  the  functions  of  civilization. 
Its  conquest  of  the  Roman  Empire,  its  medieval  dom- 
inations, Protestant  state  churches,  theocracies  of 
Geneva  and  New  England,  were  gains  of  the  world 
in  which  it  all  but  lost  its  own  soul.  Dethroned  from 
its  usurpations,  exiled  into  its  native  wilderness,  it 

74 


CHRISTIANITY  VERSUS   CIVILIZATION         75 

may  again  find  its  Lord  and  itself.  Though  in  the 
search  there  are  wanderings  and  perplexities,  losses 
and  distresses,  yet  the  compulsions  of  the  pilgrimage 
are  redemptive  disciplines,  that  will  never  suffer 
Christianity  to  be  merged  into  the  cultural  achieve- 
ments which  it  is  its  purpose  to  transform.  The 
mightiest  renascence  of  our  inherited  culture  forced 
Christianity  to  the  most  vigorous  renewal  of  its  self- 
assertion  against  the  world. 

This  search  makes  its  way  into  the  depths  of  the 
inner  life,  summoned  by  the  needs,  guided  by  the 
affirmations  fundamental  to  personality.  If  the 
essential  or  ground  of  Christianity  is  sought  in  any 
external  authority,  as  the  ecumenical  creeds,  the 
church,  the  Bible,  Christ  as  external  authority,  or  in 
any  combination  of  such  externalities,  whether  any 
or  all  of  these  are  conceived  to  be  above  reason,  or 
somehow  assessors  with  reason,  the  dominant  re- 
Ugious  tendency  of  our  time  refuses  to  follow.  Or  if 
it  be  alleged  that  the  demand  of  the  inner  life  is  for 
such  authority,  the  assertion  is  a  contradiction  in 
terms,  for  spirit  cannot  depend  upon  anything  external 
to  itself  without  renouncing  itself.  Such  a  Christian- 
ity pronounces  its  inferiority  to  the  cultural  inher- 
itance. For  the  latter's  impulse  is  not  to  thoughts  and 
aims  of  the  past  as  external  standards.    Our  inherit- 


76  THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

ance  of  civilization  affirms  itself  the  progressive  spirit 
of  humanity.  Especially  does  our  civilization's  reli- 
gious impulse  emphasize  personality,  the  inner  spirit- 
ual universe  and  the  indwelling  God.  Christianity 
can  compete  only  by  asserting  itself  to  be  humanity's 
profoundest  spiritual  self-realization. 

Thus  far  Christianity  and  our  civilization  in  its 
religious  strivings  are  at  one.  What  distinguishes 
them?  Simply  this:  that  Christianity's  inner  king- 
dom is  the  center  of  Jesus'  religious  consciousness, 
the  sanctuary  of  Jesus'  spiritual  Hfe.  Whether  a 
religion  which  is  not  this  be  regarded  as  greater  or 
less  than  this,  it  is  not  Christianity.  It  may  belong 
to  the  competitive  inheritance,  none  the  less  so  for  its 
reception  of  Christian  influences.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  religious  aspirations  of  our  cultural  inheritance 
become  Christian,  whatever  they  call  themselves,  by 
whatever  ways  they  fulfill  themselves,  whatever  their 
separations  from  Christian  organizations  and  institu- 
tions, the  moment  they  accept  Jesus'  religious  con- 
sciousness and  enter  the  sanctuary  of  Jesus'  spiritual 
life. 

But  at  this  point  there  seems  to  be  encountered  a 
contradiction,  which  our  cultural  religion  is  in  a  posi- 
tion to  urge,  between  a  religion  of  the  inner  life  and 
the  religion  which  identifies  itself  with  an  historic 


CHRISTIANITY  VERSUS   CIVILIZATION         77 

occurrence.  The  question  is  also  involved,  whether 
any  expression  of  the  spiritual  made  in  the  course  of  an 
historic  development  can  in  any  sense  be  final.  There- 
fore we  have  continual  attempts  at  constructing  a 
Christianity  without  Jesus  as  its  essential,  or  a  Chris- 
tianity whose  Christ  is  construed  as  other  than  the 
Jesus  of  history,  whatever  the  devices  employed  for 
relating  the  two.  A  deeper  spiritual  insight  ceases  to 
call  such  a  religious  consciousness  by  the  Christian 
name.  Only  in  the  inner  depths  of  the  spirit,  it  is 
urged  by  many  of  those  who  refuse  such  compromises, 
do  we  find  God,  and  our  own  selves,  and  the  spiritual 
universe.  "His  witness  is  within."  And  also,  it  is 
contended,  here  alone  is  certainty.  How  can  we  be 
sure  of  that  which  comes  to  us  through  variable  re- 
ports of  fallible  witnesses,  or  rather,  through  those 
who  distort  their  testimony?  What  would  befall  us, 
if,  making  faith  dependent  upon  Jesus,  He  becomes  too 
indistinct  for  faith  to  grasp!  Conceive  Christ,  if  you 
will,  it  is  said,  as  the  ideal  formed  by  religious  imag- 
ination out  of  the  aspirations  of  humanity;  but  do 
not  confuse  that  ideal  with  the  external,  the  temporal, 
the  uncertain. 

Surely  our  spiritual  relation  to  the  historic  Jesus 
must  pass  if  it  signifies  a  religious  consciousness  less 
certain,  inward,   and  eternal   than   these  objections 


78  THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

demand.  But  against  them  is  a  consideration  most 
congenial  to  the  spirit  in  which  these  objections  are 
made.  It  is  the  Christian  assertion,  which  Christian 
experience  presents  as  its  conviction,  that  Jesus  is  not 
the  creation  of  our  highest  religious  ideals,  but  the 
creator  of  them.  This  indicates  the  possibility  of  a 
deeper  religious  inwardness  than  any  other,  involved 
in  the  identification  of  our  religion  with  Him. 

Something  of  the  historic  Jesus  we  may  know,  and 
that  which  we  may  know  of  Him  may  be  the  inner- 
most spiritual  possession.  A  thorough  historic  agnos- 
ticism is  complete  agnosticism,  which  as  such  cannot 
assert  itself  without  denying  itself.  There  is  no  knowl- 
edge which  is  not  historic  knowledge.  Historic  is  each 
man's  knowledge  of  himself.  No  immediate  impres- 
sion has  any  significance  save  as  it  is  compared  with 
a  previous  impression,  which  then  gains  significance, 
and  the  two  are  included  in  what  can  only  then  be 
called  experience.  Thus  experience  begins.  Identi- 
fication is  essentially  historical.  To  lose  one's  own 
history  is  to  lose  oneself.  To  lose  one's  own  religious 
history  is  to  lose  one's  spirit.  Out  of  an  historic  ex- 
perience comes  the  development  of  self,  including  that 
which  pronounces  our  deepest  spiritual  affirmations, 
in  their  unity,  immediateness,  and  certainty.  Our 
history  is  our  spirituality. 


CHRISTIANITY  VERSUS   CIVILIZATION         79 

In  this  historic  self-knowledge  we  distinguish  the 
certain,  which  is  indispensable  to  our  innermost  being, 
from  the  less  intimate  elements  of  our  experience,  with 
their  confusions  of  places  and  dates,  and  their  blur- 
ring contours.  Yet  these  elements  contribute  to  the 
clearness  of  the  inward  historic  certainty.  In  propor- 
tion as  we  maintain  and  recover  them,  clarify  and 
relate  them,  does  the  inwardness  of  the  experience 
grow  in  power  to  form  itself.  The  more  distinct  and 
inclusive  our  memory  of  these  the  better  able  are  we  to 
distinguish  the  incidental  from  the  important,  and 
the  more  masterfully  do  we  unify  and  unfold  our 
spiritual  life  in  its  contents  and  tasks. 

Those  lives  are  most  significantly  self-grasped  which 
find  centers  of  energy  in  their  historic  unfoldings. 
Those  personalities  most  realize  themselves  who  live 
in  the  dawn  and  growth  of  a  great  love,  of  an  arduous 
obligation  accepted  and  loyally  adhered  to;  and  above 
all,  as  the  Christian  confesses,  in  the  transforming 
commencement  and  the  transcendent  developments  of 
that  faith  in  Jesus  which  makes  His  endeavor  our 
battle.  His  victory  our  overcoming. 

The  history  of  each  self  is  formed  in  the  history  of 
other  men  and  of  humanity.  Every  personal  con- 
sciousness is  a  social  consciousness,  each  personal 
history  is  wrought  in  relations  with  other  personalities. 


8o  THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

If  we  conceive  a  human  being  shut  out,  from  the  be- 
ginning of  his  existence,  from  conscious  intercourse 
with  other  human  beings,  that  would  not  invahdate 
his  social  nature,  formed  from  other  men,  nor  the 
social  quality  of  his  personal  history,  which  is  the 
development  of  that  social  nature;  it  would  keep 
rudimentary  his  intellectual,  moral,  and  spiritual 
powers.  Each  man's  significant  history  is  intensely 
social,  especially  when  he  concentrates  and  individual- 
izes his  interactions  with  others  into  a  normal  and  in- 
tense self-consciousness.  Poor  and  shallow  is  the 
rehgious  life  of  every  man  who  keeps  it  relatively  un- 
social, unhistorical.  Deep  religious  experiences  are 
for  those  alone  who  seek  to  make  their  own  the  reli- 
gious attainments  of  mankind's  great  past  and  arduous 
present,  and  to  live  the  mightiest  spiritual  life  by 
entering  most  deeply  humanity's  historic  life. 

This  aim  is  not,  to  receive  such  attainments  as  if 
they  were  abstractions  from  the  historic  struggles 
which  won  them,  but  to  absorb  into  our  own  history 
the  historic  search,  struggle,  and  passion  of  the 
achieving  souls.  The  truth  that  is  separated  from 
this  historic  movement  loses  vital  meaning.  We  re- 
ceive from  our  fellow-toilers  their  spiritual  toil,  which 
is  their  innermost  being,  and  our  personal  history  then 
becomes  one  with  theirs.     Therefore  great  spiritual 


CHRISTIANITY  VERSUS   CIVILIZATION         8 1 

movements  are  historic  movements.  A  religious  tem- 
per like  that  of  the  Enlightenment,  loosening  itself 
from  history,  loses  itself  in  superficialities,  till,  out 
of  the  depths,  the  historic  life  of  the  human  spirit 
reasserts  itself.  And  the  great  developments  of  this 
vaster  life  group  themselves  about  the  great  historical 
experiences  of  mankind,  births  of  political  freedom, 
consummations  of  spiritual  discovery,  about  the  su- 
premely achieving  souls,  above  all  about  Him  who 
walked  in  Galilee  and  died  on  Calvary.  By  these 
historic  victories  men  live.  In  the  supreme  historic 
personalities  is  the  life  of  the  human  spirit.  There  is  no 
depreciation  here  of  that  type  of  historic  investigation 
which  traces  the  relatively  mechanical  connections 
and  organizations  of  historic  phenomena.  These  have 
their  place,  contributory  and  subordinate  to  the  his- 
toric Hfe  of  every  man  in  the  historic  life  of  humanity. 
This  historic  experience,  which  each  individual 
shares,  has  certainty  as  forming  the  inner  and  historic 
personal  life  of  mankind.  History's  witness  is  within. 
Here  we  find  again  the  distinction  between  the  es- 
sential and  the  incidental,  and  also  the  contribution 
made  by  the  latter  to  the  former.  The  less  certain 
things  serve  the  clearness  and  scope  of  the  inward 
historic  certainty.  In  proportion  as  critical  and  con- 
structive historic  science  recovers,  elucidates,  and  con- 


82  THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

nects  them,  does  the  inwardness  of  humanity's  ex- 
perience gain  power  to  energize  us,  and  the  more 
masterfully  does  humanity  grasp  and  unfold  its 
spiritual  Hfe  in  its  contents  and  tasks.  Thus  the 
modern  critical  reconstruction  of  Jesus'  life,  in  fear- 
less independence  of  traditionalism,  is  demanded  by 
intense  evangehcal  conviction.  Many  results  must 
indeed  always  be  provisional.  Even  of  reported  words 
and  deeds  of  His  which  are  inwardly  characteristic 
of  Him,  we  may  not  be  sure  whether  they  were  spoken 
and  acted  by  Him,  or  were  merely  onflowings  of  His 
thought  and  expressive  of  His  life.  Those  things  con- 
cerning Jesus  without  which  He  would  not  be  Jesus 
are  in  the  realm  of  inward  historic  certainty.  The 
provisional  recoveries,  clarified  and  connected  to- 
gether into  an  ever  closer  approach  to  the  essential 
personaHty  of  Jesus,  are  an  invaluable  contribution 
to  that  inward  historic  experience  of  Him  as  an  abiding 
energy,  which  Christianity  affirms  the  central  energy, 
of  humanity's  spiritual  Hfe. 

Historic  humanity,  and  each  soul  in  it,  can  most 
deeply  possess  its  inward  spiritual  certainty  as  it 
finds  its  historic  Hfe-center.  Whether  Jesus  is  that, 
can  be  determined  only  by  a  deeper  study  than  these 
preliminary  considerations  attempt.  Our  contention 
at  this  point  is  simply  that  Christianity  does  not 


CHRISTIANITY  VERSUS   CIVILIZATION         St, 

necessarily  fail  in  that  inward  spiritual  conviction, 
which  is  its  primal  test,  by  identifying  itself  with  the 
spiritual  consciousness  and  task  of  the  historic  Jesus. 
And  the  Christian  confession  is  not  to  be  disregarded, 
nor  its  significance,  that  Jesus  is  not  the  creation  of 
human  ideals,  but  the  creator  of  the  supreme  of  them; 
none  the  less  so  for  taking  into  Himself  humanity's 
ideal  strivings  and  new-creating  them  in  unity  and 
power. 

Also,  if  the  central  principle  of  the  spiritual  life 
can  be  attained  at  all,  it  must  be  attained  at  some 
epoch  of  history,  which  may  be  that  of  Jesus.  Our 
own  time  cannot  arrogate  to  itself  such  discoveries, 
in  exaltation  of  itself  against  another  age  past  or 
future,  whether  by  claiming  to  find  that  secret,  or  by 
determining  that  it  cannot  be  found.  The  implications 
of  that  principle  must  indeed  ever  unfold,  be  formu- 
lated ever  more  clearly,  applied  ever  more  widely, 
continually  beyond  any  prevision.  But  whenever 
that  principle  is  historically  realized  as  center  of 
humanity's  inimitably  unfolding  life,  there  is  man- 
kind's  innermost   sanctuary   and   source   of   power. 

In  this  reception  of  Jesus  into  the  depths  of  the 
soul,  there  are  two  amazing  things.  One  is  Jesus, 
the  other  is  the  result  of  accepting  Him.  But  the 
inward  acceptance  itself  is  natural  and  famiHar. 


84  THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

It  is  nothing  less  than  the  innermost  of  Jesus  that 
we  are  to  receive;  not  His  formulations  of  faith  to 
determine  our  thinking,  not  His  expressions  of  faith 
in  conduct  or  precepts  of  conduct  to  constrain  our 
action.  Such  acceptances  of  Jesus  are  in  danger  of 
accepting  as  His,  words  that  He  did  not  say  and  ac- 
tions that  He  did  not  perform.  But  even  if  we  could 
have  certainty  in  these  respects,  such  acceptances  of 
Jesus  are  in  principle  rejections  of  Him.  They  are 
externalizations  of  life,  which  He  sought  to  renew 
inwardly.  It  is  Jesus'  innermost  Spirit  which  has 
power  to  new-create  the  soul  in  His  spiritual  liberty. 
Only  in  this  perception  may  we  be  able  to  see  that  all 
His  acts  and  words,  thoughts  and  feelings,  struggles 
and  victories,  are  of  this  essential  in  Him.  It  is  this 
ever  deepening  search  of  the  innermost  of  Jesus  that 
makes  our  life  His  increase  of  living  in  us,  a  search  that 
penetrates  to  Him  through  all  that  the  reports  of 
His  words  and  deeds  present  to  us,  and  calls  into  its 
service  every  development  of  faculty  and  experience. 
Then  we  become  by  His  power  new-created  men  in 
a  new-created  spiritual  universe. 

The  essential  of  Jesus  is  His  own  spiritual  life  in 
His  actual  attainment  of  it.  Every  departure  from 
that  renders  Christianity  empty  and  powerless,  till 
irresistible  inner  forces  sweep  us  back  from  vain  in- 


CHRISTIANITY  VERSUS   CIVILIZATION         85 

ventions  concerning  Him,  to  His  real  self.  The  calam- 
itous substitutions  began  early  in  Christian  history. 
In  apostolic  days,  against  Jesus  stood  the  Messiah 
who  was  expected  from  a  realm  external  to  humanity. 
As  men  dreamed  of  the  external  future  Christ,  so  they 
fancied  the  preexistent  Christ,  external  to  humanity. 
Into  this  dogma  the  alleged  miraculous  birth  was 
taken,  as  testifying  to  His  fundamental  separateness 
from  men.  Then  the  Christ  became  to  the  church's 
Hellenized  conceptions,  the  Logos,  to  whom  the  so- 
journing of  a  few  years  in  the  flesh  was  an  incongruous 
episode,  and  whose  saving  power  could  be  directed 
only  to  apotheosize  men,  that  is,  to  dehumanize  them. 
Then  He  was  exiled  into  the  Nicene  trinity,  where, 
to  vast  sections  of  Christian  thought,  He  has  remained. 
He  has  become  priest  and  victim  of  a  superfluous 
ceremony  of  reconcihng  God  to  men.  He  has  been 
sacramentally  paganized.  Or  the  Christian  mystic, 
longing  to  recover  Jesus,  has  sought  Him  in  imagin- 
ings at  once  too  psychical  and  too  esoteric,  which 
separate  Him  from  the  central  place  and  creative 
power  of  the  inner  Hfe.  A  recrudescent  Platonism 
has  conceptualized  Him  into  "the  essential  Christ," 
or  "the  ideal  Christ." 

In  consequence  of  these  separations,  the  formative 
power  of  the  Christian  Ufe  has  had  to  be  sought 


86  THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

elsewhere  than  in  Jesus,  and  sought  in  vain.  One 
result  is  the  phenomenon  of  an  hesitant  Christianity 
to  which  Jesus  is  only  incidental;  for  those  vagaries, 
passing  out  of  fashion  in  the  world's  thought,  leave 
nothing  to  fill  the  void.  The  departures  from  the 
real  Jesus,  with  His  abiding  moral  and  spiritual  power, 
which  is  His  real  presence  in  renewed  humanity, 
have  indeed  been  efforts  to  express  His  infinite  value 
to  men.  But  these  efforts,  due  in  part  to  the  aHen 
influence  of  our  Western  civilization,  reached  the 
opposite  of  their  intent.  They  removed  Him  from 
that  inmost  being  of  human  life,  where  we  may  receive 
from  Him  the  grace  to  look  up  to  God  with  His 
confiding  filial  devotion,  into  the  faces  of  our  fellow- 
men  with  His  redemptive  brotherhood,  and  out  upon 
the  world  with  His  mastery  of  it  to  the  soul's  eternal 
purposes. 

Those  efforts  have  been  solicitous  to  save  the 
divinity  of  the  Saviour.  This  assertion  Christianity 
must  pronounce  essential  to  the  absolute  sufficiency 
which  as  a  reHgion  it  must  claim  for  itself,  the  salva- 
tion being  of  Jesus;  but  they  failed  of  their  intent 
by  losing  this  salvation's  origin,  nature,  and  power. 
With  wavering  faith  in  Jesus  Himself,  they  have  gone 
out  to  conceptions  of  Him  which  His  character  and 
mission  repudiated. 


CHRISTIANITY  VERSUS   CIVILIZATION        87 

Yet  genuine  Christian  faith,  wiser  than  its  creed, 
has  ever  opened  the  human  spirit  to  the  inflowing 
of  Jesus'  concrete  personaUty.  In  our  day  especially, 
Christian  thought  is  sweeping  on  to  the  real  Jesus. 
If  the  present  tendency  is  too  much  occupied  with 
the  events  of  His  career  and  the  details  of  His  teach- 
ing, and  too  little  with  His  personal  remoulding  of 
humanity,  yet  through  the  attainment  of  anything 
that  belongs  to  Jesus,  the  religious  consciousness 
penetrates  to  the  reality  of  Jesus,  to  His  spiritual 
life  of  sonship,  brotherhood,  victory  over  the  world, 
and  finds  Him  the  new-creative  energy  of  men.  The 
return  of  thought  to  the  real  Jesus  has  been  led  by 
the  faith,  that  the  hfe  which  hveth  in  us  is  the  hu- 
man hfe  formative  of  human  Hfe  as  God  would  have 
it  lived. 

The  Hfe  that  Jesus  lived  in  the  flesh,  that  we  may 
Hve  that  Hfe  in  the  flesh,  may  be  found  to  include  all 
the  essentially  reHgious  strivings,  aspirations,  and 
visions  of  mankind,  as  an  individual  Hfe  alone  can 
really  include  them.  His  representativeness  does  not 
detract  from  His  originaHty,  but  is  His  originality; 
for  aU  these  spiritual  powers  He  united  in  that  faith, 
devotion,  love,  hoHness  in  one,  which  made  a  person- 
ality distinct  and  individual,  and  which  does  not 
overwhelm  other  personalities,  but  draws  them  up 


88  THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

continually  into  that  spiritual  realm  where  He  is 
Lord.  The  spiritual  life  which  He  imparts,  while 
inclusive  of  religious  values  generally,  has  always 
a  distinctiveness  new-created  from  the  originality  of 
Jesus. 

When  Christianity  ceased  to  be  an  historic  novelty, 
when  it  became  domiciled  among  men,  in  innumerable 
contacts  with  other  interests,  the  uniqueness  of  its 
fundamental  principle  became  the  more  evident. 
The  consciousness  of  the  internal  difference  deepens 
in  times  when  the  confessors  of  Jesus  are  repeatedly 
drawn  away  to  those  religious  conceptions,  activities, 
and  aims,  which  are  of  the  general  religious  experience 
of  mankind,  and  when  Christianity  is  tempted  to 
conform  itself  to  the  religious  tendency  of  the  hour, 
for  then  Christian  life  and  thought  irresistibly  re- 
assert themselves  from  Him  in  the  freshness  of  a 
rediscovery.  The  incessant  change  in  the  forms  of 
Christian  thought  and  action,  as  historic  changes 
impose  unprecedented  demands,  makes  the  wonder 
greater  that  never  in  this  continuous  flow  is  its  deter- 
minative current  mingled  with  other  floods  of  the 
spirit,  except  as  it  transforms  them  into  its  own 
impulse.  The  illimitable  unfoldings  of  this  life  reveal 
the  inexhaustibleness  of  its  historic  origin. 

Therefore  whether  men  came  into  the  convictions 


CHRISTIANITY  VERSUS   CIVILIZATION         89 

of  the  Christian  religion  from  lives  debased  or  noble, 
self-centered  or  serviceable,  they  testify  to  a  funda- 
mental revolution;  they  confess  themselves  new  crea- 
tions in  a  world  where  old  things  have  passed  away 
by  becoming  new,  where  to  their  illumined  vision 
opens  that  which  eye  had  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard, 
neither  had  it  entered  the  heart  of  man.  The  initia- 
tions of  Christian  experience  are  not  infrequently 
catastrophic,  clashings  of  spiritual  universes,  and  this 
may  be  whether  the  revolution  is  from  life-purposes 
large  or  mean,  from  conceptions  materialistic  or 
ideal.  Yet  such  dramatic  revulsions  are  not  necessary 
to  vindicate  the  uniqueness  of  Christianity.  More 
convincing  is  the  manifestation  in  a  Christian  life 
that  unfolds  with  the  general  unfolding  of  human 
faculties,  in  clearer  and  deeper  consciousness  of  dis- 
tinctive nature  derived  from  Jesus  its  original. 

The  inwardness  of  Christianity  is  the  acceptance  of 
the  spiritual  universe  of  Jesus.  The  inquiry  of  the 
disciples  is,  "Master,  where  dwellest  Thou?"  Its 
search  is  to  come  and  see  where  He  dwells,  and  there 
to  abide  with  Him.  The  life  derived  from  His  life 
will  indeed  express  itself  in  forms  that  He  never  con- 
templated, in  actions  and  organizations  that  He  never 
forecast,  to  penetrate  and  subdue  realms  of  which  He 
had  no  knowledge.    But  in  all  these  transformations 


90  THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

the  innermost  vitality  is  the  heart  of  the  actual,  the 
historic  Jesus.  The  increase  of  faith  for  which  the 
disciples  must  pray,  is  that  increase  of  faith  in  Jesus 
which  appropriates  His  faith.  It  is  He  that  saves, 
not  any  construction  of  Him,  which,  presuming  to 
make  Him  greater,  makes  Him  less,  or  may  lose  Him 
altogether.  It  is  this  personal  Jesus  who  also  evokes 
a  personal  confidence,  love,  loyalty,  devotion,  which 
Christianity  alone  possesses,  and  which  makes  its 
confessors  more  than  conquerors  through  Him  that 
loved  us,  and  which  renders  Him,  in  the  unsearchable 
depths  of  His  personal  life,  accessible  even  to  the 
most  ignorant  and  to  the  little  child,  in  a  power  that 
unfolds  all  men's  inner  life  into  His  likeness. 

But  an  objection  seems  to  arise  in  the  Christian 
experience  itself,  an  objection  similar  to  that  which 
we  have  considered,  but  urged  from  another  view- 
point. This  faith  in  the  Jesus  of  history  may  appear 
to  separate  our  faith  from  its  object.  He  lived  far 
away  and  long  ago,  but  that  power  which  is  to  form 
the  spiritual  universe  within  us  must  be  in  immediate 
touch  with  us.  Therefore  men  have  substituted  for 
the  historic  Jesus  the  ''ideal  Christ,"  suggested  by 
the  Man  of  Galilee,  or  imperfectly  expressing  itself 
in  Him  and  passing  on.  Or  men  have  announced 
the  discovery  of  a  "living  Christ,"  to  take  the  place 


CHRISTIANITY  VERSUS   CIVILIZATION        91 

of  the  historic  Jesus.  Christian  mysticism  seeks  to 
sublimate  the  historic,  to  wrest  its  absorbing  object 
away  from  the  distant  and  the  past.  And  the  experi- 
ence of  simple  hearts  that  are  increasingly  conscious 
of  their  Lord's  presence,  and  who  declare  with  interior 
conviction  *'the  Christian  Hfe  a  friendship  with 
Christ,"  may  easily  make  the  Jesus  of  the  Synoptic 
Gospels  only  prehminary  to  the  indwelling  Christ. 

In  favor  of  this  objection  to  the  identification  of 
Christianity  with  the  historic  hfe  of  Jesus,  it  must 
indeed  be  acknowledged,  that  the  demand  for  the 
immediateness  of  the  personal  power  that  new-creates 
our  spiritual  being  is  of  the  essential  of  religion,  that 
unless  Christian  experience  has  this  immediateness 
in  ever  deepening  realization,  its  Lord  becomes 

"A  dead  fact,  stranded  on  the  shore 
Of  the  oblivious  years." 

And  it  is  also  to  be  admitted  that  a  current  answer 
to  this  difficulty  is  most  unfortunate  in  its  expression 
at  least.  We  cannot  be  satisfied  with  the  answer 
that  faith  has  a  power  to  conceive  its  object  as  present, 
while  in  reality  it  is  long  ago  and  far  away.  But 
both  the  objection  and  the  answer,  which  is  suggested 
by  the  fear  of  an  unethical  and  enervating  type  of 
mysticism,  fail  to  see  the  inwardness  of  faith's  posses- 


92  THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

sion  in  the  actual  personality  of  Him  who  of  old  walked 
in  Galilee. 

Our  knowledge  of  Jesus,  as  of  every  other,  is  me- 
diated by  that  which  is  in  space  and  time.  But  of  no 
man  is  our  knowledge  phenomenally  originated,  by 
inference  from  sense  experience.  So  all  thinkers 
acknowledge,  whose  views  are  not  limited  to  sense 
experience.  We  know  our  fellowships  because  our 
personality  is  social  in  its  nature.  Whenever  any  sense 
experience  suggestively  mediates  to  us  a  personality, 
then  personality  meets  personality  in  the  unity  of  the 
inward  spiritual  universe.  Spirit  is  where  it  ener- 
gizes,—an  affirmation  confirmed  by  every  soul  that 
loves.  And  this  is  no  less  certain  of  men  of  the  past 
than  of  contemporaries.  Spirit  is  when  and  where  it 
energizes, — an  affirmation  confirmed  by  every  soul 
that  lives  in  the  power  imparted  by  a  great  soul. 
Whatever  the  relations  of  personality  to  time  (and  its 
relation  to  space  is  not  any  more  restrictive)  person- 
ality is  not  constricted  by  time  in  any  wise.  Time  is 
for  the  soul,  not  the  soul  for  time.  Whatever  person- 
ality's use  of  time,  it  is  use  of  it.  And  the  presence 
with  us  of  one  who  energizes  within  us  is  the  presence 
of  his  actual,  historic  personality,  not  of  some  other 
thing. 

This  is  most  clear  in  the  mighty  personahty  of  the 


CHRISTIANITY  VERSUS   CIVILIZATION        93 

actual  Jesus.  All  that  we  learn  about  Him,  as  we  say, 
takes  us  to  the  inmost  soul  of  Him,  unless  we  are  con- 
tent to  make  Him  an  external  authority  or  standard. 
They  who  saw  Jesus  and  heard  and  touched  Him  were 
no  nearer  to  Him  spiritually,  that  is,  really,  than  we 
may  be  today.  Not  so  near  indeed,  for  they  did  not 
know  the  essential  of  Him  as  well  as  we  may  know  it. 
It  is  not  that  the  words  and  actions  of  Jesus  pass  with 
undiminished  power  down  the  centuries  and  across 
far  spaces  of  land  and  sea:  between  the  innermost 
spirit  of  Jesus  and  our  spirit  there  are  no  centuries,  no 
spaces  of  land  or  sea.  The  assertion  of  the  tran- 
scendence of  soul  to  the  phenomenal  order  is  made 
whenever  the  inspiration  of  a  great  soul,  by  whatever 
mediations  brought  to  us,  kindles  our  souls  into  new 
life.  And  this  is  most  evident,  when,  from  a  reported 
word  of  Jesus,  from  a  record  of  His  service,  from  our 
constructive  insights  into  the  organizations  of  His 
words  and  deeds,  we  experience  His  very  power  pos- 
sessing us.  His  very  life  arising  within  us. 

Yet  humble  faith  and  obedient  love  entreat  a  re- 
sponse, even  as  they  are  conscious  of  an  indwelling. 
The  Fourth  Gospel,  whose  message  of  Jesus'  life  in 
His  disciples  is  severely  ethical  and  spiritual  in  spite 
of  its  metaphysic,  has  not  only  the  words  "I  in  them," 
but  also,  "They  in  Me."    It  is  not  for  us  to  formulate 


94  THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

His  heart  of  inexpressible  tenderness  who  dwells  in 
the  innermost  life  of  God  forevermore.  But  as  love 
has  the  inalienable  conviction  that  those  holy  ones  de- 
parted, whose  character  and  vision  we  have  incom- 
pletely made  our  own,  still  care  for  us  with  affection 
which  puts  to  shame  our  infrequent  thought  of  them, 
so,  but  yet  more  vitally,  must  it  be  with  Him  whose 
redemptive  power  is  the  immediate  salvation  of  every 
believer.  It  is  very  truth  that  "the  dead  live  when 
we  think  of  them;"  true,  beyond  the  wan  fancy  of  a 
dreamy  subjectivism,  to  every  man  who  has  begun 
to  know  the  ethical  actions  and  reactions  of  the  inner 
life,  the  indivisible  realm  of  souls.  The  saved  cannot 
be  more  deeply  conscious  of  the  Saviour  than  He  is 
conscious  of  the  least  of  the  saved.  In  that  conscious- 
ness is  our  deeper  life.  This  does  not  change,  but 
deepens  the  significance  of  the  historic  Jesus,  for  He 
is  the  same  Jesus  who  is  ever  mindful  of  His  own. 

In  the  historically  evangelical  conviction  is  formed 
the  sane  Christian  mysticism,  which  refuses  to  de- 
grade its  ethical  and  spiritual  fellowship  with  its  Lord 
by  any  sickly  fancies  pertaining  to  the  realm  of  sense, 
and  allying  themselves  with  a  belated  conceptualism. 
Or  when  we  feel  or  express  what  Jesus  is  to  us  in 
imaginative  terms  of  the  lower  order,  we  must  be 
careful  to  remember  that  they  are  but  symbols,  by 


CHRISTIANITY   VERSUS   CIVILIZATION        95 

which  the  ethical  and  spiritual  life  of  Jesus  in  us  must 
suffer  no  detriment.  Where  the  presence  of  Jesus  is, 
in  moral  and  spiritual  power,  there  may  be  also,  to 
certain  temperaments,  or  to  attainments  new  or  deep 
of  His  moral  and  spiritual  life,  normal  reflections  of 
that  immediateness  in  forms  which  it  is  not  lawful  to 
utter.  The  ecstatic  trait  of  Jesus  has  its  place  in  the 
disciple.  But  to  those  who  seek  such  experiences  for 
emotional  gratification  it  must  be  said,  "That  way 
madness  lies," — a  madness  infecting  moral  judgment 
and  spiritual  integrity.  The  Christian  aim  is,  that 
the  ethical,  spiritual  power  of  Jesus  shall  consume  all 
that  is  not  of  Himself,  and  create  His  own  life  within 
us,  and  make  us,  in  all  holy  and  serviceable  living, 
instruments  through  which  His  own  redemptive  task 
may  strive  on.  The  historic,  the  real  Jesus  is  all  the 
ideal  Christ  we  need.  It  is  this  Jesus  who  is  ever  with 
His  own,  and  more  profoundly  indwelling  presence 
there  need  not  be  and  cannot  be;  while  we  await 
patiently  that  fulfillment  which  is  not  of  a  different 
order,  though  of  an  incomparably  higher  range:  "I 
will  come  again  and  receive  you  unto  myself,  that 
where  I  am,  there  ye  may  be  also." 

Thus  Christianity  need  be  none  the  less  religion  ot 
the  inmost  spiritual  life  for  identifying  itself  with 
Jesus.    Nothing  more  than  this  assertion  is  sought  to 


96  THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

be  established  at  this  point,  in  these  preliminary  con- 
siderations. It  has  indeed  been  impossible  to  speak 
of  the  identification,  essentially  characteristic  of  the 
Christian  faith,  in  any  other  language  than  that  of 
humbly  exultant  certainty.  But  there  is  implied  no 
desire  to  force  that  conviction  upon  critical  reflection. 
With  the  same  limitation  of  intent  we  turn  to  the 
second  test  which  Christianity  must  meet.  Does  its 
identification  of  itself  with  the  historic  Jesus  prejudice 
the  following  claim,  which  it  must  make  in  order  to  be 
considered  at  all:  the  claim  to  be  the  vital  principle 
of  humanity  in  humanity's  widest  scope  and  furthest 
unfoldings,  to  be  humanity's  reahzing,  energizing,  and 
completing  power. 

In  passing  from  one's  inner  self  to  the  life  of  human- 
ity we  are  not  leaving  one  realm  for  another.  We  are 
intuiting  the  inner  personal  life  more  clearly  and  feel- 
ing it  more  intensely.  In  the  depths  of  its  own  per- 
sonality every  soul  finds  other  souls  in  inahenable 
fellowship.  The  impossibility  of  accounting  for  our 
knowledge  of  our  fellowmen  by  inferences  from  sense 
impressions,  necessary  as  these  are  to  stimulate  and 
mediate  that  knowledge,  connotes  the  inner  com- 
munity of  men  with  men,  the  spiritual  nature  of 
unions  of  thought  and  aim  and  love.  Personality  is 
socially  realized  because  social  in  its  nature.    Essen- 


CHRISTIANITY  VERSUS   CIVILIZATION        97 

tial  to  the  inviolable  center  of  each  personality  are 
receptions,  outflowings,  and  communions  of  life  with 
life.  Without  these  self  were  blank  and  nothing- 
ness. 

There  can  be  no  limit  to  this  internal,  essential  fel- 
lowship. My  own  self  I  must  seek  in  every  man  the 
world  over,  in  every  rational  being  the  spaces  through. 
No  man  of  the  past  is  dead  to  me.  From  every  soul 
of  the  future  my  soul  must  be  revivified.  Every 
enmity  is  my  variance  with  myself,  agony  of  self- 
disruption.  Every  righteous  conflict  with  another  is 
only  for  love's  sake.  In  every  aloofness  I  forsake  my- 
self. Every  indifference  to  another  is  suicidal.  With 
every  antagonist  I  must  be  reconciled,  and  that  in  the 
depths  of  his  spirit  and  mine.  Here  are  inviolable 
personal  reserves,  spiritual  self-preservations  of  souls 
that  will  not  meet  souls  in  any  depreciations  of  per- 
sonal dignity  and  holiness.  The  self-attainment  is 
by  self-imparting,  which  presses  on  to  bear  all  burdens, 
to  suffer  in  every  misery,  to  expose  itself  to  every 
injury,  to  reconcile,  to  redeem. 

These  fellowships  of  life  wherein  I  gain  and  give 
myself  are  with  men  in  their  communions  with  men,  in 
a  fellowship  with  universal  spiritual  life  most  individ- 
ually, personally  intuited,  conceived,  felt  and  willed. 
The  more  deeply  my  soul  is  stirred,  the  more  do  I 


98  THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

penetrate  this  boundless  fellowship,  this  all-inclusive 
unity.  Of  this,  few  are  distinctly  conscious,  for  few 
have  discovered  their  own  innermost  being,  yet  this 
unity  is  the  ground  of  every  human  relation  and  the 
premonition  of  its  perfecting.  It  is  a  humanity  to  be 
achieved,  a  spiritual  universe  in  its  becoming.  From 
every  soul  to  every  soul,  in  every  touch  of  soul  on  soul, 
there  is  the  summons  of  unconditioned  love,  however 
vague  or  inarticulate:  "I  am  thine  and  thou  art  mine, 
for  the  innermost  of  personality  is  thine  and  mine. 
Descend  thither,  find  thyself,  that  thou  and  I  may 
find  one  another,  and  all  men,  and  mankind,  and  all 
who  are  yet  untraced  in  the  endlessness  of  souls  at 
one." 

This  universal  unity  of  human  fellowship,  individ- 
ually realized  in  the  innermost  of  the  soul  and  the 
spiritual  order,  does  not  transfer  us  into  a  realm  of 
abstractions.  Here  is  unmingled  concreteness.  We 
have  to  do  with  realities,  not  concepts ;  with  immediate 
life,  not  with  translations  of  it  into  thought;  with  ex- 
perience, not  reflection,  save  as  reflective,  conceptual, 
generalizing  thought  makes  the  reality  clearer,  so 
becoming  an  element  of  it.  All  the  unity  that  has 
been  wrought  or  is  to  be  accomplished  is  in  the  actual 
living  of  real  men.  The  whole  process  is  of  living 
personalitieSj  attaining  themselves  and  one  another 


CHRISTIANITY    VERSUS   CIVILIZATION        99 

in  historic  work  and  play,  struggle  and  achieve- 
ment. There  is  no  antinomy  of  the  historic  and  the 
ideal. 

In  this  real  drama  all  other  rational  creatures  are 
included,  else  they  would  not  be  in  rational  relation 
with  us;  for  the  ground  of  rational  relation  is  this 
personal  social  self-realization;  and  we  have  learned 
to  repudiate  the  possibility  of  anything  out  of  rational 
relation  with  us.  It  is  but  a  step  to  the  transforma- 
tion of  everything  that  is,  down  to  the  simplest  exist- 
ence and  through  all  the  stars  and  star  mists,  into 
this  one  personal  universe,  achieving  itself  in  vital 
relations  of  a  universal  social  life.  Nor  can  this  truly 
historic  endeavor  of  all  things  ever  be  sublimated 
into  a  different  kind.  Forever  this  spiritual  universe, 
which  we  now  call  humanity,  is  simply  vital,  historic 
experience,  whose  higher  forms  indeed  we  cannot 
forecast,  any  more  than  we  can  trace  the  forms  below 
us,  but  whose  concrete  historic  quality  is  essential. 
Therefore  there  is  no  separation  from  this  fellowship, 
no  change  into  another  order,  for  those  to  whom  all 
physical  seemings  are  overpassed.  Nor  is  conscious- 
ness of  individuality  dimmed  when  we  see  that  the 
final  unity  and  sufficient  power  is  the  energy  of  the 
omnipotent  ordering,  the  all-penetrating  love.  For 
it  is  just  this  immanent  divine  which  makes  the  con- 


lOO        THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

Crete  unity  of  beings  and  their  unfoldings  wherein 
He  worketh. 

Of  this  history,  concrete,  actual,  for  it  can  be 
nothing  less,  Christianity  affirms  that  Jesus  is  the 
central  energy.  Our  present  argument  is  not  that  a 
central  energy  is  essential.  Our  argument  is  not, 
at  this  point,  that  Jesus  fulfills  the  requisite  conditions 
for  this  power,  if  it  is  essential.  But  we  urge  that 
there  is  no  disparagement  to  the  deepest,  the  most 
spiritual  conception  of  humanity,  when  the  Christian 
confession  is  uttered  (and  here  again  there  is  forced 
upon  us  the  language  of  humbly  exultant  certainty, 
which  we  would  not  force  upon  any  man):  "From 
Jesus  I  receive  the  vision  and  energy  for  my  eternal 
task  in  the  one  historic  life,  in  the  universal  spiritual 
order.  From  Jesus  I  receive  it,  not  from  any  'essen- 
tial' or  'ideal  Christ,'  I  receive  it  from  Jesus  in  His 
doing  of  this  historic  task;  and  since  it  is  received  from 
Him  and  not  from  another  source,  I  proclaim  Him 
sufficient  and  essential  for  the  task  of  every  man." 

All  this  history  of  humanity  self-realized  is  indeed 
in  God  and  God  is  in  it  all.  But  God  cannot  be  in  it, 
save  as  He  is  in  its  limitations  and  struggles,  or  rather 
— that  we  may  not  fall  into  unreal  abstractions — in 
every  limited  and  struggling  soul.  And  God's  central, 
unifying  energy  in  it,  we  may  look  for  in  a  soul  that 


CHRISTIANITY  VERSUS   CIVILIZATION      loi 

is  limited,  that  struggles,  and  achieves  the  task  of 
personality  in  humanity,  a  task  whose  real  nature 
our  study  has  yet  to  seek. 

When  and  where  this  soul  does  its  individual  work, 
fulfills  its  personal  task,  makes  no  difference,  if  only 
it  is  when  and  where  it  may  be  accessible  to  all  souls. 
The  possibility  at  least  of  the  immortality  of  all 
souls  is  requisite,  that  this  soul's  accomplishment  may 
reach  them  all,  and  that  they  may  complete  this 
soul's  influence  upon  them,  each  in  its  own  individual- 
ity and  its  endlessly  unfolding  inward  fellowships 
with  other  souls;  but  this  requisite  is  given  in  the 
affirmation  of  concrete,  spiritual  humanity. 

That  which  this  soul  accomplishes  must,  in  its  in- 
fluence upon  others,  its  Hfe  in  others,  be  unfolded  as 
variously  as  there  are  persons  to  live  and  works  to  do. 
Christianity  affirms  that  the  power  of  humanity's 
self-realization  is  a  man  individual,  historic,  who 
attained  fife's  essential  energy  and  peace,  whence 
He  pours  out  regenerative  direction  and  competency 
upon  all  who  will  receive  Him,  for  the  realization  of  an 
harmonious  spiritual  universe;  and  that  this  man  in 
His  task,  fulfilled  in  and  through  the  limitations 
of  time  and  place  and  circumstance,  inheritance  and 
temperament,  through  moral  struggle  and  spiritual 
growth,  is  the  center  of  God's  redemptive  working. 


I02         THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

The  right  of  Christianity  to  present  itself  to  the 
competitive  inheritance  as  identifying  itself  with 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  is  all  that  is  contemplated  at  this 
point.  In  the  depths  of  personality  the  right  main- 
tained itself.  In  that  inner  life  in  its  universal  social 
realization  the  right  maintains  itself.  And  no  less 
must  it  be  considered  as  we  toil  along  life's  dusty 
roads,  with  the  carpenter  of  Nazareth. 

As  we  enter  with  Jesus  life's  penetralia,  we  feel 
ourselves  endued  with  a  transforming  power,  that 
goes  back  with  us  new-created  men  to  new-create 
whatever  confronts  us.  The  distinctiveness  of  this 
spirit  is  manifest  in  its  leaving  the  externals  of  life 
unaffected,  save  by  revolutions  working  to  the  sur- 
face from  depths  transformed.  Eccentricity  of  con- 
duct, fantasticalness  of  opinion,  aloofness  from  any 
human  interest,  are  repugnant  to  it.  They  caricature 
Christianity  into  an  external  thing  in  competition 
with  other  external  things.  The  disciple  of  Jesus 
speaks  no  unctuous  phrase,  affects  no  holy  tone. 
He  receives  genially  whatever  forms  of  truth  and 
beauty  are  set  before  him  by  the  successive  phases 
of  history.  He  comes  eating  and  drinking,  guest 
equally  gracious  in  house  of  Pharisee  or  Publican, 
most  at  home  in  the  huts  of  the  lowly.  He  is  frankly 
man    of    the   world   in   accounting   nothing   human 


CHRISTIANITY  VERSUS   CIVILIZATION      103 

foreign  to  himself.  In  humanity's  battles  he  fights 
in  the  high  places  of  the  field,  appreciative  of  all 
loyal  alHes,  though  they  be  ignorant  of  the  cause 
and  unconscious  of  the  great  protagonist.  He  is 
child  with  every  child,  keeps  unquenchable  the  hope 
and  passion  of  youth,  exults  in  the  heat  and  burden 
of  the  day,  which  he  would  mitigate  to  men's  power 
to  endure,  receives  into  his  reverent  sympathy  the 
pathos  and  majesty  of  old  age,  yet  is  ever  conscious 
of  the  eternal  beneath  life's  transiencies.  He  rejoices 
with  them  that  rejoice,  and  with  a  higher  joy.  He 
weeps  with  them  that  weep,  in  redemptive  sorrow. 
Dear  to  him  are  men's  household  words,  for  he 
knows  their  derivations  from  the  supernal  ten- 
derness. He  receives  all  things  into  mind  and  heart, 
from  the  heights  of  the  sky,  from  the  primordial 
star  mist,  from  every  mysterious  origin  and  ex- 
pansive strife  of  life  in  every  form,  and  transforms 
them  into  his  own  nature.  There  is  no  beauty 
that  is  not  his  deeper  delight,  no  passion  that  is  not 
his  intenser  flame,  and  over  against  every  experience 
of  gain  or  loss,  success  or  disillusion,  he  flings  wide  an 
entrance  into  the  myriad-portaled  city  of  the  soul. 
Jesus'  acceptance  of  the  common  possessions  of  man- 
kind is  because  He  knows  Himself  to  be  of  a  spirit 
which  is  able  to  subdue  all  things  to  itself.    This  is 


I04        THE   CHRISTI.\N  RECONSTRUCTION 

the  divine  breath  that  broods  upon  the  waters  of  our 
social  chaos.  This  is  the  transforming  Hght  upon  the 
void  and  desolation  and  darkness  of  human  conditions. 
This  is  the  effectual  word  that  creates  the  spiritual 
universe,  which  shall  be  when  all  the  forms  of  things 
have  passed. 

Thus  far  we  have  been  occupied  with  the  radical 
division  of  modern  life  between  the  two  inheritances, 
the  Aryan  and  the  Semitic.  The  nature  of  each  in- 
heritance remains  to  be  considered.  Only  by  such 
an  inquiry  can  we  hope  to  find  their  mutual  relations; 
and  only  in  this  way  is  attainable  that  unity  of  Hfe 
which  is  the  deepest  longing  of  our  time. 


PART  SECOND 
JESUS  AND   MODERN  LIFE 


CHAPTER  I 

THE   TWO   WORLD-CONQUESTS 

The  Aryan  genius  is  world-appropriating:  the 
Semitic  genius  is  world-transcending. 

The  difference  between  our  civilization  and  Chris- 
tianity grows  in  significance,  as  we  observe  their 
separate  developments  from  diverse  origins,  find 
ourselves  engaged  in  competitive  obligations  and  con- 
fused between  mutually  opposing  endeavors  to 
reach  a  unity  of  life.  The  situation  has  made  us 
suspect  that  we  are  involved  in  one  of  the  deepest 
problems,  if  not  the  final  problem,  in  forms  more 
perplexing  than  have  beset  any  previous  age. 

Surely  the  question  that  confronts  civilized  man 
and  Christian  man  is  not,  whether  we  are  to  conquer 
the  world  or  be  conquered  by  it.  Civilization  as 
such,  and  Christianity  in  its  assertion  of  the  soul, 
proclaim  that  it  is  man  who  must  conquer.  In  this 
affirmation  they  are  at  one,  and  by  this  affirmation 
they  discern  their  common  enemies.  But  they  sepa- 
rate in  their  determinations  of  the  nature  of  the  con- 
quest.    It  is  the  appropriation  of  the  world  by  the 

107 


io8        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

human  soul,  says  culture;  the  affirmation  is  most 
clear  and  vigorous  in  the  Hellenic  fulfillments  of 
culture.  Not  so,  says  Christianity;  the  soul  conquers 
the  world  only  as  it  makes  itself  independent  of  even 
an  appropriated  world. 

All  thoughts,  desires,  and  interests,  which  either 
contestant  deems  of  value,  range  themselves  under 
the  one  or  the  other  of  these  principles.  Later  times 
than  ours  may  see  this  distinction  more  clearly:  no 
time,  it  would  seem,  can  feel  it  more  distressfully. 
From  this  rift  in  our  own  age  opens  the  interminable 
problem,  which  each  age,  as  each  individual,  must 
solve  for  itself.  We  stand  before  two  distinct  prin- 
ciples, each  claiming  to  be  supreme.  We  contemplate 
two  mutually  exclusive  ends,  each  of  which  presents 
itself  as  final.  By  the  perception,  choice,  and  reahzed 
outworking  of  the  one  or  the  other  of  these  alterna- 
tives, must  all  elements  of  life  be  determined,  every 
task  accomplished,  every  condition  rectified,  and  every 
human  potency  liberated.  If  the  one  by  which  the 
soul's  victory  over  the  world  is  to  be  gained  allows 
the  other  any  scope,  it  must  be  as  contributory  to  the 
unconcessive  higher  principle  and  aim.  The  conquest 
of  the  world  by  humanity!  All  things  put  under  the 
feet  of  man,  who  is  crowned  with  glory  and  honor! 
This  impulse  directs  us  to  the  pregnable  summits  of 


THE  TWO  WORLD-CONQUESTS  109 

the  universe.  Above  every  height  towers  the  human 
soul.  But  is  it  the  appropriative  or  the  transcendent 
power  that  has  the  right  to  say,  I  have  overcome  the 
world? 

World-appropriation  involves  world-completion. 
Nothing  in  the  world  comes  and  gives  itself  into  man's 
hand.  Passive  acceptance  of  a  good,  were  that  con- 
ceivable, makes  it  a  blank.  A  generation  which  in- 
herits a  wealth  that  it  does  not  continually  recreate 
goes  bankrupt,  smitten  with  penury  of  soul.  We 
appropriate  anything  only  by  completing  it  from  our 
own  selves.  Every  psychical  action  upon  sense  im- 
pression strives  to  complete  as  it  appropriates.  Every 
external  datum  awaits  our  fiat.  This  primal  neces- 
sity stimulates  the  human  spirit  to  follow  along  this 
path,  to  infuse  ever  more  of  itself  into  its  appro- 
priation of  the  world,  to  complete  all  things  into 
beauty  and  order.  To  complete  the  world,  the  spirit 
must  in  that  labor  complete  itself,  to  the  uttermost 
self-development  and  self-mastery,  for  its  domination 
and  perfecting  of  all  things.  Because  the  world  yields 
to  the  elaborations  of  this  impulse,  we  delight  in  it, 
as  an  artist  delights  in  his  own  creation,  and  as  God 
rejoices  in  the  works  of  his  hands.  Because  the  world 
resists,  we  dehght  in  it  still  more,  with  the  joy  of  a 
conquest  in  which  our  powers  expand;  unless  we  may 


no        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

find  at  length  that  the  resistance  is  too  strong  for  us. 
That  misgiving  the  Hellenic  genius  thrust  resolutely 
away,  though  never  unaware  of  it,  in  order  to  enter 
and  possess  realms  which  are  less  the  gifts  of  the  gods 
than  the  soul's  own  achievements,  a  world  worthy 
to  be  possession  and  delight  of  self-attained  humanity. 
World-appropriating  and  world-completing  is  the 
principle  of  our  inheritance,  from  the  splendid  origins 
of  our  civilization.  The  first  descriptive  word  sufiices: 
to  appropriate  is  to  complete. 

World-transcending  implies  world-destroying.  The 
world  has  lost  value  to  the  soul  that  has  risen 
above  it. 

"Heaven's  consummate  cup,  what  need'st  thou  of 
earth's  wheel:" 

though  the  cup  was  fashioned  on  the  wheel.  There  is 
need  of  sobriety  here,  lest  in  essaying  to  surmount  the 
world  we  attain  the  void,  lest  losing  the  world  we  lose 
instead  of  find  our  own  soul.  The  soul  that  knows 
its  transcendent  destiny  is  indeed  dependent  upon 
flesh  and  sense  and  all  their  elaborations,  for  its  dis- 
cipline and  development.  If  it  ignores  them,  as  do 
the  mystics  who  lack  humihty,  it  sinks  into  a  nothing- 
ness from  which  no  new  creation  can  arise.  Yet  it  is 
in  opposition  to  the  world  that  it  realizes  itself,  and 


THE  TWO  WORLD-CONQUESTS  iii 

v/^hatever  the  world  contributes  to  this  self-realiza- 
tion is  to  be  transformed  into  spiritual  quality,  and  as 
world  quality  ceases  to  be.  If  it  should  be  found  that 
everything  acquired  by  the  Aryan  genius  may  be  thus 
directed  and  transubstantiated,  the  transcendent  aim 
would  be  none  the  less,  but  all  the  more  evidently, 
world-destroying:  nor  in  such  use  of  its  means  is 
this  principle  postponed,  obscured,  or  compromised. 
World- transcending  and  world-destroying  is  the  prin- 
ciple of  our  Semitic  inheritance.  The  first  descriptive 
word  sufiices :  to  transcend  is  to  destroy. 

The  principles  bear  racial  names,  because  the  fore- 
most representatives  of  each  principle  are  respectively 
of  the  Semitic  and  the  Aryan  race.  These  principles 
are  not  abstractions  or  generalizations,  but  are  con- 
crete and  historically  militant.  The  most  valuable 
contribution  of  each  race  to  humanity  is  its  working 
out  of  the  one  or  the  other  principle,  which  is  thus  its 
characteristic  genius,  its  essential  quality.  Not  that 
either  principle  confines  itself  to  either  division  of 
mankind,  or  that  any  accident,  as  of  mixed  blood, 
would  necessarily  be  important.  There  has  never 
been  a  normal  man  of  the  Aryan  family  who  has  not 
felt  the  impulse  to  assert  the  soul  enfranchised  from 
the  world:  to  every  Semite  the  world  has  often  pre- 
sented itself  as  his  heart's  desire.     This  complexity 


112         THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

is  in  the  earliest  traceable  manifestations  of  the  human 
spirit.  The  two  tendencies  grow  together  with  human 
growth.  Each  has  been  dependent  upon  the  other. 
Each  contributes  to  the  other's  energy.  The  soul  that 
would  appropriate  the  world  must  stand  above  it  in 
mastery.  Otherwise  the  world  has  no  significance. 
The  soul  that  would  transcend  the  world  must  have 
the  world  to  develop  the  soul  by,  through  opposition 
and  transformation.  Else  the  soul  has  no  content. 
But  it  does  not  follow  that  each  of  these  tendencies 
has  equal  rights,  as  in  a  synthesis  where  each  may 
pursue  the  united  aims  of  both.  Such  prevalent  com- 
promise is  but  dimly  conscious  of  the  principles  in 
competition.  The  two  principles,  vague  and  con- 
fused, tend  to  mutually  exclusive  self-assertion,  ig- 
noring which  most  men  are  left  to  antagonisms  of  a 
life  divided  against  itself.  There  is  flung  upon  the 
earth  the  sword  that  rends  asunder.  No  man  can 
serve  these  two  masters  and  attain  an  undivided,  con- 
centered and  self-reaHzing  manhood. 

The  alternative  becomes  most  significant  when  we 
find  that  our  attitude  to  the  world,  either  to  appro- 
priate it  or  to  transcend  it,  determines  the  soul's  con- 
sciousness of  itself,  of  humanity,  and  of  God. 

These  words,  world,  soul,  humanity,  God,  connote 
all  but  inextricable  confusions  of  human   thought. 


THE  TWO  WORLD-CONQUESTS  113 

Each   blends   with    the    others,    loses   itself   in    the 
others. 

The  word  world  is  the  vaguest  of  them,  because 
the  world  is  the  most  difficult  of  access,  and  it  com- 
plicates the  other  conceptions  almost  beyond  hope  of 
solution.  When  we  seek  to  obliterate  its  confusions 
by  saying,  The  world  as  world  is  not,  everything  is 
soul;  then  its  remonstrant  persistency  seems  to  answer, 
The  soul  is  not,  and  humanity  is  not,  everything  is 
world.  We  attempt  to  lift  the  world  up  into  God, 
and  fear  lest  we  have  dragged  God  down  into  the 
world.  The  world  is  we  know  not  what,  except  that 
it  is  the  distracter,  perhaps  the  destroyer,  of  the  spirit- 
ual universe.  What  help  may  we  gain  from  that  to 
determine  the  nature  of  the  other  three  mysteries? 

The  difficulty  gives  the  answer.  The  world  is  that 
which  the  soul  has  to  overcome.  In  this  progressive 
overcoming  the  soul  gains  the  realities  of  the  spiritual 
universe.  Whatever  we  affirm  of  the  soul,  humanity, 
and  God,  is  vague  and  imperfect  prophecy,  whose 
rudimentary  value  is  dependent  upon  our  partial 
attainments  in  the  conflict  with  that  which  ever 
opposes.  All  preliminary  definitions  of  reality  are 
tentative,  confused  and  self-contradictory.  Complete 
definition  would  be  infinite  realization.  If  we  could 
say  our  eternal  yea  and  nay  in  the  perfect  utterance  of 


114        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

its  meaning  then  our  warfare  would  be  accomplished. 
There  are  indeed  overwhelming  spiritual  convictions 
won  in  the  progress  of  the  strife.  In  these  we  antici- 
pate our  triumph  and  reinforce  our  struggle.  The 
constant  opponent  itself  we  declare  to  be  in  the  spirit- 
ual universe,  which  is  the  all  in  all,  for  indeed  against 
that  opposition  the  soul  becomes  conqueror.  But  the 
world  is  spiritual  only  to  the  soul  that  makes  it  so, 
and  only  by  the  strife  that  makes  it  so  is  our  kingdom 
won.  Here  is  the  business  of  every  man,  and  his  all- 
inclusive  business.  This  is  the  one  historic  toil  of 
humanity.  We  may  let  the  world  conquer  us  if  we 
will.  But  if  we  choose  to  be  men  we  must  be  men 
engaged  in  conquering  the  world.  Only  then  can  there 
be  for  us,  soul,  humanity,  God  at  all.  But  in  the 
world-conquest  there  is  disclosed  the  great  alternative, 
whether  by  appropriating  the  world  or  by  transcending 
it,  we  may  attain  soul,  humanity,  and  God. 

The  attitude  to  the  world  determines,  first,  what 
the  soul  is.  Modern  thought  emphasizes  the  relation 
of  consciousness  to  its  object,  discerns  the  accom- 
paniment of  the  physical  organism  to  every  mental 
action,  acknowledges  the  futility  of  the  attempt,  by 
any  means  mystical  or  magical,  to  withdraw  the  soul 
from  the  world.  The  intensifying  of  this  emphasis 
has  led  from  morbid  introspection,  empty  speculation, 


THE  TWO  WORLD-CONQUESTS  115 

and  the  self-centering  which  is  self-devastation,  out 
into  observation  and  science,  wholesome  objectivities, 
and  an  ethic  of  practical  aims.  The  soul  knows  itself, 
feels,  realizes  itself,  in  the  measure  of  its  awakening 
to  the  world.  There  has  developed  in  our  time  the 
conception  of  the  soul  in  terms  of  activity,  with 
thought  as  means  to  action,  and  itself  of  the  nature  of 
that  which  it  serves.  Thus  in  its  encounter  with  the 
world,  the  soul  gains  itself,  and  becomes  more  clearly 
self-cognizant,  self-feeling,  and  self-determining.  And 
the  world  which  it  encounters  is  increasingly  subdued 
to  mental  distinctions  and  organizations,  is  made  the 
means  of  realizing  the  more  abundant  life  of  man. 

But  there  break  in  upon  us  great  Semites,  and  some- 
thing in  our  inmost  self  forbids  to  evade  or  to  repulse 
them.  "The  world  passeth  away  and  the  lust  for  it." 
They  do  not  mean  simply  that  each  man  has  to  die, 
that  enjoyment  decays  with  the  decay  of  physical 
powers,  or  that  the  possession  of  worldly  goods  is 
subject  to  accident.  But  they  are  pronouncing  judg- 
ment upon  the  world  in  its  relation  to  the  soul;  that 
its  appropriation  cannot  be  the  soul's  end.  They  are 
affirming  of  the  soul  that  its  nature  and  destiny  are 
not  to  be  found  in  the  appropriation  of  the  world. 

Yet  the  world  that  passeth  away  is  substantial 
antagonist.     They  call  the  soul  to  arms  against  it, 


Ii6         THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

but  not  to  the  appropriative  conquest  of  it.  "What 
shall  it  profit  a  man  if  he  gain  the  whole  world  and 
lose  his  own  soul!"  The  Semitic  prophets  are  not 
like  the  Aryan  Buddhas,  who  bid  us  withdraw  from 
the  world,  retreat  from  the  strife.  They  keep  us  in  the 
midst  of  secularities.  Their  complete  Gospel  is  for 
those  who  are  most  constrained  by  physical  neces- 
sities, that  in  the  world  we  may  assert  the  soul  against 
the  world,  by  its  transcendence  of  the  world. 

Again,  humanity  is  determined  by  its  relation  to 
the  world.  This  means  more  than  that  the  decisive 
personal  alternative  extends  to  all  men.  Humanity 
connotes  vital  interrelations  of  men,  organizations 
unto  a  life  that  embraces  all  men,  and  which  confronts 
the  alternative,  humanity's  conquest  of  the  world  by 
appropriating  it  or  by  transcending  it. 

That  humanity  is  determined  by  its  relation  to  the 
world  is,  in  its  popular  interpretation,  one  of  the  most 
famiHar  conceptions  of  our  time.  The  most  brilliant 
achievement  of  science  is  agreed  to  be  the  tracing  of 
the  order  of  nature  up  into  man,  or  the  tracing  up  of 
mankind,  not  out  of  this  natural  order,  but  as  the 
most  complete  unfolding  of  the  natural  order  that  is 
known  to  us.  This  discovery  has  more  than  theoret- 
ical interest  and  interpretative  significance.  It  dis- 
covers the  innumerable  bonds  that  unite  us  with  the 


THE  TWO  WORLD-CONQUESTS  117 

physical  world.  Along  these  vital  connections  it 
finds  remedies  for  disease,  cooperative  adjustments 
to  vast  physical  forces,  applications  of  inheritance  and 
variation,  rectifications  of  a  life  which  turns  from 
barren  speculations  and  presumptuous  desires,  en- 
largings  of  a  life  that  sanely  acknowledges  nature  its 
mother  and  the  world  its  home.  We  lose  much  of 
this  advantage  if  we  seek  to  restrict  evolutionary  con- 
tinuity to  physical  organizations.  The  discovery 
makes  its  beneficent  way  into  mental  elaborations  of 
sense,  into  vital  feeling  and  normal  aims,  into  harmo- 
nious political  and  social  organizations,  that  is,  into 
the  progressive  constructions  of  a  broader  and  hap- 
pier humanity.  In  this  epochal  discovery  humanity 
is  determined  by  its  relation  to  the  world. 

The  result  is  the  mighty  reinforcement  of  the  Aryan 
resolve,  to  subject  the  world  to  the  spirit  of  humanity 
by  the  appropriative  and  completive  world-conquest. 
Our  spiritual  affirmations  welcome  the  furthest 
possible  extensions  of  the  physical  into  the  life  of 
mankind,  for  thus  is  heightened  our  estimate  of  that 
in  our  humanity  which  physical  evolution  does  not 
account  for,  and  which  is  not  derived  from  it,  however 
closely  intertwined  with  it.  Else  every  significance 
and  worth  is  swept  away,  including  significance  and 
value  to  be  pronounced  upon  the  physical  process 


Ii8         THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

itself,  or  the  denial  of  its  significance  and  value.  Our 
age  is  awakening  to  this  perception,  that  the  further 
the  natural  evolutionary  process  extends  into  the 
organization  of  each  life  and  of  humanity,  the  higher 
must  be  the  nature  of  the  spiritual  which  is  beyond 
that  process  and  which  is  the  final  determiner  of  it, 
and  the  more  extensive  and  intimate  must  be  man's 
conquest  of  it.  The  consummate  achievement  of 
natural  science  thus  far  is  to  become  the  awakener  of 
spirit,  the  mighty  instrument  of  personal  self-realiza- 
tion, the  unfolder  of  interior  worths.  It  is  more 
clearly  impossible  than  before  to  consent  that  the 
world  shall  conquer  the  soul.  In  this  higher  sense  then, 
humanity  determines  itself  by  its  relation  to  the  world. 
This  reassertion  of  the  human  spirit  by  the  very 
power  which  seemed  about  to  overwhelm  it,  is  kin- 
dling the  prophets  of  humanity  to  affirmations  of  more 
sublime  unfoldings.  Humanity's  task  engages  the 
world  more  broadly  and  closely,  the  task  of  an  un- 
precedented world-conquest  and  a  larger  self-realiza- 
tion. There  is  nothing  in  earth  or  sky  which  the 
aggregating  forces  of  humanity  need  deem  mightier 
than  its  own  rediscovered  self.  These  forces  become 
more  deeply  conscious  of  their  unity  as  man  combines 
with  man,  power  with  power,  in  the  conquest  which 
is  to  be  won  by  all  mankind  for  all  mankind.    The  new 


THE  TWO  WORLD-CONQUESTS  119 

energy,  grasped  first  by  lonely  thinkers,  now  gaining 
companionship,  and  impatient  for  its  poets  and  artists, 
who  will  appear  to  express  it  when  it  is  felt  more 
deeply  in  the  heart  of  the  common  people,  is  already 
imparting  a  general  buoyancy,  now  in  its  beginnings. 
By  the  rectification  of  every  repressive  condition,  by 
the  breaking  of  every  chain,  by  the  subjugation  of 
realm  after  realm,  force  after  force,  the  one  life  of  man- 
kind, humanity,  forms  itself  by  the  union  of  souls  in 
their  great  task.  So  each  personality  finds  its  stronger 
and  more  joyous  self  in  the  self-realization  of  humanity 
by  its  appropriative  conquest  of  the  world. 

This  awakening  is  accessible  to  the  Semitic  prin- 
ciple, if  only  Christianity,  in  the  day  of  its  opportunity, 
will  free  itself  from  repressive  traditions,  clarify  it- 
self from  obscurations,  and  assert  itself  without  com- 
promise in  its  essential  simplicity  and  power.  The 
Semitic  evangel  comes  with  austere  criticism  and  com- 
pletive inspiration.  Humanity  is  to  the  Semitic 
genius  the  kingdom  of  God,  a  militant  conception 
which  belongs  purely  to  the  world-transcending  con- 
quest. Current  interpretations  of  this  phrase  in  the 
other  sense  are  its  denial.  Its  realization  of  humanity 
is  in  the  accomplishment  of  mankind's  spiritual 
potencies  in  holy  love.  The  world  is  essential  to  it 
only  in  its  task  of  transcending  the  world.     In  the 


I20        THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

passing  of  the  world  the  spiritual  fellowship  abides, 
with  its  fulfillment  of  every  soul.  Every  Aryan 
conquest  of  the  world,  and  every  Aryan  progress  of 
knowledge  of  the  world  and  of  power  over  it,  the 
Semitic  spirit  uses  in  its  contest  of  different  quality. 
All  the  works  of  the  competitive  inheritance  it  directs 
to  the  transcendent  purpose.  What  shall  it  profit 
humanity  if  it  shall  gain  the  whole  world  and  lose  its 
own  soul? 

Finally,  the  soul's  attitude  to  the  world  determines 
its  consciousness  of  God.  This  consciousness  is  im- 
plicit in  the  other  two  which  we  have  regarded.  In 
this  consciousness  we  are  penetrating  the  depths  of  the 
others.  Absolutely  religious,  directed  Godward,  in 
Him  and  for  Him,  is  either  conquest  of  the  world  by 
the  human  soul. 

Not  that  our  consciousness  of  God  is  derived  from 
the  world.  The  Heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God  only 
to  him  who  has  beheld  that  glory  in  the  Heavens  of 
the  soul.  The  whole  earth  is  full  of  His  glory  only  to 
the  soul  that  He  has  filled.  Experience  of  the  world 
leads  to  experience  of  God,  only  by  awakening  a 
spiritual  consciousness  which  is  not  of  the  world,  and 
which  cannot  be  drawn  from  the  data  of  sense  and 
their  organizations  by  mental  processes.  Even  when 
this  different  apprehension  asks  the  world  to  reecho 


THE  TWO  WORLD-CONQUESTS  121 

its  affirmations,  the  answer  is  given  in  the  various  and 
conflicting  voices  of  a  world  which  must  first  be  con- 
quered by  the  soul,  and  the  overcoming  of  which  is 
the  revelation  of  God  in  it.  The  world  affirms  spirit 
only  so  far  as  spirit  conquers  it. 

The  attempt  has  failed,  to  evolve  the  religious  con- 
sciousness of  mankind  from  man's  experience  and 
interpretation  of  the  world.  This  experience  has 
awakened  a  deeper  experience,  and  every  religious 
interpretation  of  the  world,  whether  attempted  by 
savage  or  civilized  men,  has  applied  a  consciousness 
which  came  forth  from  a  sublimer  mystery  to  explain 
the  perplexities  of  a  lower  range.  The  view  is  winning 
an  ever  wider  assent,  that  at  the  root  of  mankind's 
religious  development  is  a  consciousness  of  God,  vague 
indeed  and  unpurified.  We  need  not  be  surprised  to 
find  in  crude  peoples,  along  with  bewildered  animisms 
and  gross  totemisms,  some  gropings  after  the  power 
unique  and  creative.  Conscious  rehgion  began  when 
this  consciousness  began.  This  movement  is  found  to 
manifest  itself  further  back  than  we  had  supposed 
possible,  and  its  origins  are  implicit  in  human  con- 
sciousness from  depths  beneath  our  imagining.  This 
is  the  ineradicable  power  that  draws  men  out  of  the 
superstition  which  ever  seeks  to  pervert  it.  It  is  this 
implicit  faith  which  endued   the  early  prophets  of 


122         THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

humanity  with  incalculable  energies,  and  which  ever 
sweeps  up  from  profundities  of  the  human  spirit  at 
the  crises  of  individuals  and  humanity. 

The  soul's  attitude  to  the  world  determines  what 
our  consciousness  of  God  shall  be,  but  the  attitude 
is  assumed  by  the  soul  as  conquerer  of  the  world. 

The  philosophy  of  religion  has  only  recently  ap- 
proached an  adequate  recognition  of  the  place  of  the 
world  in  the  conception  of  rehgion,  adding  this  relation 
to  that  between  God  and  the  soul,  at  the  same  time 
giving  to  the  word  soul  its  personal-social  meaning. 
Yet  the  venerable  definition  of  religion,  whose  many 
variants  only  restate  the  original  terms,  "The  soul's 
union  with  God,"  has  not  yielded  to  another  with  the 
world  added,  but  has  unfolded  the  significance  of  the 
word  union:  in  relation  with  the  world  is  the  soul's 
union  with  God  achieved.  Now  that  the  soul  is  con- 
ceived in  terms  of  action,  its  union  with  God  cannot 
be  regarded  as  fundamentally  contemplation,  or 
feeling,  or  any  intellectually  monistic  or  esthetically 
mystical  absorption  of  the  soul  in  God.  It  is  a  union 
ethical,  essentially  spiritual,  as  originated  by  the  holy, 
infinite,  and  eternal  One,  and  answering  back  to  Him. 
It  is  the  union  of  doing  His  will.  It  is  the  union  of  the 
servant  with  his  Lord,  wherein  service  attains  the 
perfect  freedom.    It  is  the  union  of  the  son  with  the 


THE  TWO  WORLD-CONQUESTS  123 

Father,  perfected  in  the  prayer,  "Thy  will  be  done." 
In  this  union  contemplation  and  feeling  are  present 
but  subordinate.  This  is  the  divine  union  of  the  whole 
man  of  us,  and  of  humanity  organized  for  its  divine 
task.  The  field  of  this  task  is  the  world.  The  task 
is  the  conquest  of  world  by  spirit.  The  ethical, 
spiritual  union  with  God  is  its  inmost  meaning.  From 
Him,  in  Him,  and  unto  Him,  we  overcome  the  world. 

This  religious  conquest  of  the  world  is  either  world- 
appropriating  or  world-transcending. 

The  former  as  well  as  the  latter  is  religious,  and  so 
proclaims  itself  when  conscious  of  itself.  The  Hellenic 
divinities  were  gods  of  men's  tasks,  and  with  impulse 
to  unite  themselves  in  one  divine  will,  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  the  supreme  organization  of  world-em- 
pire. For  men  to  attempt  works  which  were  not  of 
the  will  of  the  gods,  by  powers  not  of  their  inbreathing, 
was  insolence,  sin  at  its  extreme,  incurring  remediless 
destruction.  The  classic  philosophy  is  religious.  Its 
ethical  transformation  unfolded  itself,  in  faithfulness 
to  its  inner  nature,  unto  receptiveness  to  a  deeper 
spirituality.  The  very  phrase,  Genius  of  our  Civili- 
zation, bears  this  reUgious  character,  and  they  who 
imagine  that  our  inheritance  of  culture  has  lost  this 
quality,  know  not  what  spirit  they  are  of,  nor  what 
is  most  significant  in  our  civilization's  present  un- 


124        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

foldings.  There  is  still  aflame  the  intense  religion  of 
God  in  His  appropriative  world-conquest  through  the 
human  soul.  The  Aryan,  in  his  Hellenic  consumma- 
tion, differs  from  the  Semite  not  in  being  less  reli- 
gious, but  in  that  his  religion  is  determined  by  the 
appropriation  of  the  world,  in  the  power  of  deity,  to 
work  out  divine  ends. 

To  learn  the  Semite's  religious  conception  of  the 
task  of  the  transcendent  world-conquest,  and  his  ser- 
vice of  God  in  the  world,  whereby  he  attains  union  with 
God,  we  turn  from  these  introductory  formal  consid- 
erations to  historic  realizations.  In  this  field  of  con- 
crete and  vital  competition  the  Semitic  distinctions 
from  the  Aryan  world-conquest  become  clear. 


CHAPTER   II 

THE  HISTORIC  REALIZATION  OF  THE  SEMITIC  PRINCIPLE 

Thus  the  human  spirit,  when  it  rises  above  life's 
lower  ranges  and  becomes  aware  of  a  world  to  be 
subdued  and  of  itself  as  world-conqueror,  stands 
at  the  parting  of  the  ways,  and  must  overcome  either 
by  appropriating  the  world  or  by  transcending  it. 
The  paths,  all  but  indistinguishable  at  their  entrances, 
lead  to  goals  a  universe  apart,  yet  the  vast  regions 
which  each  has  to  traverse  must  become  one  kingdom 
of  the  soul.  This  is  the  inclusive  historic  process, 
necessary  to  humanity's  self-attainment,  if  humanity 
shall  ever  succeed  in  attaining  itself.  For  from  the 
supreme  adventure,  the  two  great  hosts,  or  detach- 
ments of  them,  may  turn  back  at  any  stage  of  the 
progress.  Each  advance  is  haunted  by  the  impulse 
to  choose  the  other.  The  different  purposes  are  con- 
fused with  each  other.  It  is  hard  for  either  to  win  a 
clear  self-consciousness.  Yet  the  two  aims  of  world- 
conquest  gradually  work  out  their  distinctiveness  and 
separateness.  In  two  races,  the  Aryan  and  the 
Semitic,  the  two  principles  are  respectively  stronger 

125 


126        THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

than  in  any  other,  and  these  races  are  therefore  com- 
petitors for  the  leadership  of  mankind.  Through 
confusions,  unfaithfulnesses,  temporary  obliterations 
of  purpose,  each  tends  to  define  itself  in  the  one  or 
the  other  of  history's  radical  oppositions,  whose 
complete  explications  are  indispensable  to  the  final 
historic  synthesis.  Other  races  contribute  elements  of 
the  great  alternative,  which  become  significant 
when  received  by  the  races  which  best  represent, 
respectively,  its  terms.  It  is  the  Aryan  genius  which 
is  world-appropriating,  the  Semitic  which  is  world- 
transcending. 

The  Aryan  finds  himself  in  our  Hellenic  civilization. 
Semitic  powers  issue  in  Christianity.  As  Aryan  and 
Semitic  respectively,  our  civilization  and  Christianity 
may  be  understood  genetically  and  universally. 

The  racial  names  thus  applied  have  larger  mean- 
ings than  that  of  physical  descent.  There  are  blend- 
ings  of  races,  which  it  is  now  the  fashion  of  some  to 
exaggerate  in  reaction  from  racial  antipathies.  There 
are  interchanges  of  influence  so  strong  that  men  who 
are  physically  of  one  race  have  the  spirit  of  the  other. 
One's  birth  into  civilization  or  religion  is  not  of  blood 
alone.  He  is  Aryan  who  has  the  mental  traits  which 
are,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  generally  associated  with 
Aryan   physical    descent;    and    "They    are    not    all 


THE   SEMITIC   PRINCIPLE  127 

Israel  who  are  of  Israel."  One  may  lose  one's  birth- 
right, or  voluntarily  exchange  it  for  the  other.  More 
significant  than  the  alleged  descent  of  Jesus  from  the 
seed  of  David,  is  the  uncertainty  whether  He  had  more 
of  Hebrew  or  Aramaean  or  Greek  blood  in  His  veins. 
He  was  typical  Semite  because  He  chose  to  be.  To 
Semitic  influences  He  opened  His  whole  soul.  One 
need  be  none  the  less  Hellenic  if  one  is  MongoUan, 
African,  Malayan,  Indian,  especially  if  one  is  con- 
scious of  inheriting  elements  which  are  to  be  added 
to  the  Hellenic  culture;  nor  need  any  man  be  less 
Christian  for  non-Semitic  blood.  No  race  is  shut  out 
from  full  citizenship  in  either  city  of  the  soul.  Aryan 
and  Semitic  signify  two  currents  of  historic  influence; 
the  racial  names  are  appropriate,  because  the  out- 
workings  have  been  in  general  along  racial  lines  or 
from  racial  representatives.  Yet  the  racial  terms  lose 
their  pertinence  the  moment  we  cease  to  make  their 
chief  connotations  mental  and  spiritual. 

Primitive  Semite  and  precultural  Aryan  show  only 
slight  differences,  the  importance  of  which  appears 
less,  the  closer  they  are  scrutinized.  In  early  stages 
generally  of  similar  evolutionary  grade,  the  resem- 
blances now  engage  our  ethnology  more  than  the 
differences, — so  of  custom,  religion,  or  social  institu- 
tion.   The  idiosyncracies  which  seemed  most  marked 


128        THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

are  found  to  be  comparatively  superficial  impressions 
made  by  different  environment.  It  is  the  expressions 
which  differ:  the  quality  expressed  is  much  the  same 
from  jungle  and  steppe  to  pole.  The  tasks,  aims, 
and  reflections  are  alike  when  under  like  conditions. 
The  early  phases  of  religion  surprise  us  by  their 
homogeneity  among  all  peoples.  The  alleged  im- 
plicit monotheism  peculiar  to  the  primitive  Semite 
has  gone  the  way  of  the  dogma  of  a  primitive  monothe- 
istic revelation  preserved  by  a  Semitic  people.  But 
these  early  likenesses  do  not  affect  our  historic  sense 
of  the  great  alternative,  nor  of  Aryan  and  Semite 
as  representatives  of  its  two  determinations.  For 
the  alternative  is  of  humanity's  more  developed  life, 
when  the  consciousness  has  beome  relatively  clear 
that  there  is  a  world  to  be  conquered  and  a  human 
spirit  strong  to  conquer  it.  Below  this  stage,  though 
with  strange  anticipations  of  its  separative  problems, 
are  barbarisms,  frequently  recrudescent  in  later 
developments.  Mankind  journeys  on  as  it  were 
together,  a  spiritually  undifferentiated  multitude, 
though  expressing  itself  in  various  speech,  leaving 
many  stragglers  in  its  track,  till  the  survivors  of  the 
march  enter  together  the  realm  of  world-conquest, 
and  there  find  the  parting  of  the  ways. 

When,    later,    an    influence    spreads    from    some 


THE   SEMITIC   PRINCIPLE  129 

center  of  development,  sudden  and  wonderful  are 
Aryan  or  Semitic  acceptances  of  Aryan  or  Semitic 
leaderships.  Those  lands  of  the  Macedonian  or 
Roman  Empire  which  were  predominantly  Aryan, 
were  regenerated  by  the  Greek  genius,  though  in  the 
decline  of  its  reproductive  power.  No  less  remarkable, 
when  the  unfavorable  conditions  are  considered, 
was  the  response  of  the  Northern  barbarians  to  the 
senescent  Greek  spirit,  its  impartations  confused,  in 
many  respects  neutralized,  by  alien  Christianity. 
These  peoples  took  advantage  of  the  decay  of  their 
cultural  original,  to  develop  new  powers  of  world- 
appropriation,  which  found  themselves  more  and 
more  germane  to  the  Greek,  less  and  less  accordant 
with  Christianity.  Today  how  marvelous  the  awaken- 
ing of  the  Slavic  nations,  how  swift  their  advance, 
the  moment  their  soul  is  set  free  from  the  prison-house 
of  tyranny  and  ecclesiasticism,  to  hail  the  radiance 
of  the  Aryan  god  of  day!  The  Greek  influence  upon 
Semitic  peoples,  notwithstanding  all  their  spas- 
modic discipleships  of  Greek  philosophy  and  art 
and  their  imitations  of  European  manners,  betrays 
its  superficiality  by  falling  away  at  every  shock. 
But  the  Semitic  world  of  Mohammed's  day,  at  a 
dawn  of  the  consciousness  of  world-conquest,  devoted 
every  energy  to  the  most  exclusively  transcendent 


130        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

conception  of  deity  that  has  ever  smitten  the  heart 
of  man.  The  Mohammedan  constraint  has  been 
mighty  upon  populations  neither  Aryan  nor  Semitic. 
Its  Aryan  disciples,  save  where  the  Aryan  spirit  has 
passed  into  its  negation,  have  wrought  their  character- 
istic changes  upon  it,  and  Aryan  renaissances,  in 
proportion  to  their  vigor,  subdue  it  to  the  Aryan 
quality. 

The  influence  of  Semite  and  Aryan  upon  other  races 
is  suggested  by  the  world-wide  awakenings  of  our  day. 
To  the  Japanese  and  Chinese,  the  Semitic  ideal,  the 
Christian  evangel,  seems  remote,  and  the  Aryan 
genius  congenial.  As  these  peoples  rise  out  of  lower 
stages  of  undifferentiated  culture  and  religion,  stages 
whose  influence  may  prove  less  persistent  than  we 
supposed,  they  join  the  Aryan  advance.  It  may  be 
that  a  chastened  Christianity  will  be  forced  for  a 
long  period  to  seek  its  conquests  among  lowlier 
peoples,  many  of  whom  we  are  abandoning  to  the 
propaganda  of  a  Semitism  inferior  to  our  own  re- 
ligious inheritance,  and  will  learn  her  Lord's  exultant 
thankfulness  to  the  All-father,  who  has  hidden  the 
mysteries  of  His  kingdom  from  the  wise  and  prudent 
and  has  revealed  them  unto  babes.  The  impassive- 
ness  of  India  to  Occidental  ways,  so  far  as  India  is 
Aryan,  is  a  phenomenon  of  a  different  order.     For 


THE   SEMITIC  PRINCIPLE  131 

there  the  Aryan  genius  has  passed  beyond  us  of  the 
West,  into  a  phase  to  which  our  less  developed  Aryan- 
ism  makes  slight  appeal. 

The  materials  of  the  Hellenic  civilization,  which  is 
the  chief  representative  of  the  Aryan  progress,  are 
from  Semitic  sources.  The  Babylonian  culture, 
which  we  are  forced  to  call  Semitic,  instead  of  Sume- 
rian,  because  it  presents  itself  to  us  as  the  culture  of 
the  ancient  Semitic  world,  was  full-formed  before  the 
earliest  historic  settlements  of  Greek  peoples.  From 
Semitic  origins  came  thoughts  and  forms  to  the 
custodians  of  Aryan  progress.  This  fact,  which  seems 
to  contradict  the  historic  significance  of  the  funda- 
mental distinction  between  the  Aryan  and  the  Semitic 
principles,  indicates  that  a  Semitism  strong  enough 
to  propagate  its  distinctive  principle  is  forced  to 
work  out  its  own  nature,  faces  an  arduous  task  of 
historic  self-realization. 

When  historic  imagination  transports  us  to  an 
ancient  city  of  the  Babylonian  plain,  we  are  in  the 
heart  of  that  which  seems  world-conquest  by  appro- 
priation of  the  world.  The  primal  energy  is  supplied 
by  unintermittent  exploitations  of  natural  forces. 
That  which  were  else  barren  steppe  must  be  trans- 
formed into  Eden,  by  harnessing  Euphrates  and 
Tigris  to  irrigation  work,  and  through  the  necessity 


132         THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

of  that  conquest  power  is  created  in  the  human  spirit 
for  larger  appropriations  of  the  world.  Vast  are  the 
procreant  floods  drawn  as  from  these  rivers  to  water 
all  the  Paradise  of  man.  The  intensity  of  that  ancient 
secular  life  flames  in  our  faces,  from  their  memorials 
of  dehght  in  the  world,  of  passionate  love,  ambition, 
and  hate.  From  such  impulses  to  appropriate  the 
world  grew  arts  and  literatures,  legal  systems,  political 
institutions,  irresistible  strategies,  ethical  organiza- 
tions of  life. 

All  was  indeed  in  the  names  of  the  gods,  who  were 
patrons  of  their  cities,  leaders  of  their  armies.  The 
pride  of  Babylonia,  and  of  Assyria,  continuator,  ally, 
and  competitor,  expressed  itself  in  colossal  buildings 
to  the  glory  of  deity,  yet  the  spirit  of  even  their 
cultus  seemed  predominantly  of  this  world.  The  gods, 
though  public  functionaries,  in  that  age  when  the 
religious  and  the  secular  were  undifferentiated,  are, 
in  their  inner  natures,  deistically  remote  from  men. 
Though  the  Babylonian  mythology  springs  from  the 
conflict  with  barren  soil  and  tumultuous  flood,  the 
life  of  the  gods,  elementally  turbulent,  is  lived  apart. 
From  their  starry  habitations,  their  watery  expanse, 
their  mountain  of  the  North,  few  and  difficult  are  the 
paths  which  human  aspiration  may  climb  or  divinity 
descend.     Even  the  dehcate  feet  of  Ishtar,  who  is 


THE   SEMITIC   PRINCIPLE  133 

riotous  with  the  luxuriance  of  the  agricultural  year 
and  languishes  with  its  recurrent  barrenness,  grace 
no  ways  of  men,  but  wander  among  the  demonic 
powers  of  the  lower  world.  Into  the  void  between 
the  divine  and  the  human  rush  all  conceivable  demons ; 
and  while  formal  deference  is  paid  the  most  high 
gods,  the  actual  supernatural  interest  is  magic  and 
incantation,  that  hostile  powers  may  be  propitiated 
to  assist,  or  intimidated  to  let  alone,  human  interests 
which  lie  this  side  the  dusty  grave. 

This  material  culture  dominated  Western  Asia 
for  at  least  three  millenniums  of  magnificent  self- 
assertion,  against  invasions  which  it  either  beat  back 
or  subdued  to  its  own  nature.  Into  this  focus  of 
civilization  the  nations  were  drawn,  and  out  of  it 
they  passed  renewed,  transformed.  Panbabylonian  is 
the  world's  earhest  recoverable  civilization  immemo- 
rial. Babylonian  are  materials,  forms  and  thoughts 
of  the  Hellenic  culture.  In  many  elements  of  life 
we  also  are  men  of  Babylonia.  Their  mighty  rivers, 
yoked  to  human  use,  shall  fructify  the  soil  of  secular 
harvests  perennially.  That  word  Panbabylonian  has 
more  of  secular  than  of  religious  significance,  not- 
withstanding that  their  myths  of  the  gods  became 
folklore  of  Israel,  and  their  beliefs  are  inscribed  on 
the  first  pages  of  our  Bible,  are  resurgent  in  the  last 


134        THE  CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

book  of  the  New  Testament,  affected  prophetic  con- 
ceptions and  the  thought  of  Jesus.  Though  songs 
of  the  spirit  breathed  from  their  intense  hearts,  and 
their  greatest  poem  known  to  us,  The  Epic  of  Gil- 
gamesh,  is  tragedy  of  disillusion  both  with  the  present 
Hfe  and  spiritual  aspiration,  the  influence  of  Baby- 
lonia is  far  from  originative  of  Israel's  manifesta- 
tion of  the  Semitic  spirit.  Against  Babylonia  and 
Assyria,  the  precursors  of  Christianity  waged  their 
fiercest  warfare  for  the  world-transcendence  of  the 
human  spirit,  and  overcome  in  triumphs  not  of  earth 
and  time. 

Yet  this  Semitic  civilization,  from  which  the  consum- 
mate Aryan  derived  materials,  forms  and  thoughts, 
impresses  us^  the  more  we  study  it,  as  of  a  different 
nature  from  the  Aryan,  with  a  difference  not  of  de- 
gree but  of  kind;  not  a  lower  stage  of  continuous 
evolution  which  needs  only  to  set  free  resident  forces, 
not  an  implicit  prophecy  to  be  fulfilled  when  other 
historic  conditions  appear.  The  impulse  to  world- 
appropriation  was  intense,  but  this  was  an  impulse, 
welhng  up  from  the  undifferentiated  depths  of  human 
desires.  Not  the  impulse,  however  developed  and 
manifold,  but  the  genius  of  world-appropriation,  is 
distinctive.  How  far  does  the  soul  assert  itself  in  this 
appropriation?    How  far  does  the  world-appropriation 


THE   SEMITIC   PRINCIPLE  135 

become  world-completion  by  the  human  that  trans- 
forms its  objects,  vitalizes,  rationalizes,  and  organ- 
izes them?  The  ancient  Semite  accumulated  materials, 
forms,  conceptions,  and  forces  of  civilization,  for  the 
Aryan  to  change  into  another  genus. 

The  limitations  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria,  their 
pauses,  failures,  retrogressions,  and  disasters,  do  not 
in  themselves  prove  that  essential  unlikeness,  yet  they 
seem  to  be  characterized  by  the  absence  of  a  power 
which  was  to  be  manifested  in  the  Aryan  race  in  the 
days  of  its  opportunity.  Our  discoveries  of  Baby- 
lonian exploits,  literary,  plastic,  or  mechanical, 
of  their  institutions,  legal,  industrial,  and  political, 
are  so  recent  that  our  dazzled  eyes  fail  to  discern 
clearly  the  innate  deficiencies  in  comparison  with 
Hellenic-Roman  creations.  Their  inability  to  con- 
ceive in  general  more  than  one  type  of  government, 
their  incapacity  to  rule  subject  peoples,  the  very 
continuance  for  ages  of  a  civilization  of  which  the 
earliest  representatives  known  to  us  are  all  but  as 
typical  as  the  latest,  the  final  failure  of  recuperative 
power,  substantiate  Hegel's  judgment,  that  we  have 
here  mass,  instead  of  organism  self-moved. 

The  difference  between  Babylonianism  and  Hellen- 
ism may  be  thus  expressed:  the  former  was  pushed 
on,  the  latter  was  led  on.     The  great  tasks  which 


136         THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

Babylonia  accomplished,  and  Syria  and  Phenicia  as 
influenced  by  Babylonia,  originated  in  necessities 
which  must  be  met  if  men  would  live  at  all,  and  were 
forced  on  further  along  the  path  of  impulses  common 
to  civilized  and  uncivilized  men.  The  barren  plain 
must  be  irrigated;  the  great  rivers  must  be  harnessed. 
When  conditions  apparently  adverse  proved  to  be 
most  favorable  to  increase  of  population,  cities 
grew  like  the  incredible  harvests  of  the  land  of  the 
two  rivers.  Comfort,  luxury,  and  power  came  as  it 
were  of  themselves,  with  their  inevitable  contrasts 
of  exploitations,  oppressions,  and  tyrannies;  and  the 
swarming  hordes  and  divergent  conditions  must  be 
regulated  at  least.  By  a  similar  necessity,  lusts  of 
wealth  and  power  must  be  gratified.  The  inevitable 
developments  awake  inevitable  responses  in  human 
hearts,  ever  sensitive  to  Joy  and  sorrow,  ever  passion- 
ate to  live.  But  none  of  the  stimulations,  even  in  the 
Phenician  cities,  seems  to  outrun  the  forces  that  push 
it  on.  Nowhere  do  we  find  that  which  thrills  Hellenic 
life,  a  spirit  that  leads  men  on  faster  than  any  neces- 
sary tasks  and  natural  demands  can  impel  them,  and 
in  new  ways;  the  genius  of  an  advance  spontaneous, 
creative,  and  synthetic,  employing  indeed  given 
materials  of  civilization,  yet  possessing  original  uses 
of  them.    This  power  alone  is  competent  to  the  task 


THE   SEMITIC   PRINCIPLE  137 

of  appropriative  world-conquest  for  the  unfolding 
spirit  of  man. 

In  that  ancient  Semitic  civilization  there  are  inti- 
mations at  least  of  the  world-transcending  path. 
Its  gods  are  transcendent.  Though  nature  deities 
necessarily,  they  tended  to  associate  themselves  with 
those  aspects  of  nature  which  seem  to  be  separate 
from  the  ordinary  course  of  things  in  man's  immediate 
environment.  They  were  gods  of  the  mysterious 
waters,  especially  of  those  above  the  firmament, 
gods  of  the  inaccessible  stars.  When  connected  with 
man's  world,  although  the  inevitable  sense  of  human 
dependence  upon  deity  recognizes  the  graciousness 
of  the  supreme  benefactors,  it  is  their  destructive- 
ness,  terribleness,  and  aloofness  that  make  the  stronger 
impression.  Therefore  the  Babylonian  myths,  prev- 
alent in  the  Semitic  world,  were  not  incongruous 
forms  for  the  severer  of  the  religious  conceptions  of 
Israel. 

The  transcendence  of  deity,  unethically  conceived 
and  out  of  fellowship  with  human  life,  leaves  men  to 
run  riot  in  the  physical,  and  instigates  propitiations 
monstrous  and  obscene,  more  degenerate  in  Syria 
and  Phenicia  than  in  the  source  of  Semitic  life.  Yet 
in  our  recoil  from  uncouth  forms  of  the  transcendent 
conceptions  of  deity,  it  is  necessary  to  recognize  that 


138         THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

even  these  forms  have  a  part  in  man's  transcendent 
conquest  of  the  world.  The  call  to  world-transcendence 
can  be  uttered  by  a  deity  even  cruelly  transcendent. 
Though  the  holiness  which  says,  "Be  ye  holy,  for  I 
am  holy,"  is  first  conceived  as  physical  separateness 
from  the  world,  and  as  compatible  with  earthly 
passion,  yet  the  possibility  has  been  opened  of  the 
recognition  of  a  moral  separateness  in  God,  an  ethical 
holiness  which  summons  human  aspirations  to  spiritual 
communion.  From  a  Semitic  deity  dwelling  apart 
from  His  worshippers  in  a  wild  sky  that  flames  above 
a  mountain  wilderness,  from  the  God  most  Semitically 
inaccessible,  whom  it  is  death  to  approach,  whose 
nature  is  destructive  vengeance,  placable  at  the 
caprice  of  a  will  unaccountable, — it  is  from  this 
Jahveh,  more  than  from  the  fairest  of  the  divine 
humanities  of  Greece,  that  ethical  regenerations  of 
the  transcendent  world-conquest  can  unfold,  when 
men's  troubled  vision  has  pierced  the  clouds  and 
darkness  of  their  early  imaginings,  to  the  justice  and 
judgment  which  are  the  foundation  of  His  throne. 

Even  in  Babylonia,  the  religious  consciousness  to 
which  deity  is  remote,  and  which  renounces  hope  of 
the  world  to  come,  since  devoid  of  a  divine  fellowship 
with  assurance  of  eternal  worth,  is  yet  a  consciousness 
of  the  transcendent  in  another  order  of  being,  and 


THE   SEMITIC   PRINCIPLE  139 

thither  ineradicable  impulses  aspire.  Therefore  the 
Gilgamesh  epic  and  the  later  hymns  are  significant  of 
the  deeper  implications  of  ancient  Semitism.  In 
that  epic,  humanity,  at  its  utmost  of  heroism,  stands 
beneath  a  Heaven  too  high  for  hope,  and  is  oppressed 
by  divine  powers  which  are  insensible  to  human 
longings.  The  most  splendid  accomplishments  are 
continually  brought  to  futility  and  sorrow.  The 
quest  of  immortal  life  has  been  achieved  only  once  by 
a  child  of  man;  when  grasped  by  another,  after  ago- 
nizings  that  exhaust  the  possibilities  of  manhood,  an 
ineluctable  fate  snatches  it  away.  Yet  the  chastened 
heart  of  an  humbler  singer,  as  he  chants  the  divine 
majesty,  may  find  itself  not  far  from  the  transcen- 
dence it  adores.  Small  as  is  the  amount  of  such  utter- 
ances recovered  by  us,  they  bear  witness  to  the  pres- 
ence, in  a  civilization  so  materialistic,  of  a  Semitic 
genius  sufficient,  when  it  finds  itself,  to  win  the  spirit- 
ual leadership  of  mankind. 

Semitic  influence  upon  the  fetichism,  totemism, 
and  animism  of  Egypt  wrought  strange  commin- 
glings,  sometimes  glorious  transformations.  But  the 
intractable  elements  of  the  civilization  and  religion 
of  the  Nile  kept  Egypt  relatively  apart  from  other 
history.  The  influences  attributed  to  her  appear  to 
be  reflections  of  non-Egyptian  qualities  given  back 


140        THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

with  strange  Egyptian  modifications,  rather  than  im- 
partations  of  that  which  is  distinctive,  and  therefore 
most  secretive,  in  the  genius  of  that  unfathomable 
people. 

The  Semite  entered  the  straight  path  to  his  goal, 
when  a  gathering  of  Arabian  tribes  found  their  chief 
deity  in  a  natural  phenomenon  that  impressed  them 
as  most  apart  from  the  rest  of  nature  and  most  de- 
structive; whether  lava-smoke,  as  seems  the  more 
probable,  rent  with  flaming  explosions,  or  roaring, 
gleaming  thunder-cloud,  into  which  the  original 
impression  seems  to  have  been  changed  by  later  con- 
ceptions. That  wild  worship  could  have  contributed 
little  to  the  development  of  religion  had  it  not  been 
swept  into  a  convergence  of  historic  forces,  through 
which  those  detonations  still  utter  the  words  of  the 
Eternal.  To  the  unendurable  glories  of  that  sanc- 
tuary came  a  people  with  powers  set  free,  by  recent 
escape  from  oppression,  for  man's  conquest  of  the 
world.  Wonted  to  a  cultivable  soil,  they  were  greedy 
of  another.  They  also  sought  a  God  to  lead  them 
thither,  for  the  gods  of  their  accustomed  worship 
had  been  left  behind  in  Egypt,  and  they  found  in 
the  mountains  of  Paran  that  irresistible  terror: 
Jahveh  is  man  of  war,  Jahveh  of  the  hosts  of  Israel! 
A  tradition  of  a  numen  of  the  desert  whom  the  nomad 


THE   SEMITIC   PRINCIPLE  141 

ancestors  of  some  of  them  had  served  in  ancient 
days,  identified  this  newly  accepted  deity  with  that 
dread  power  which  had  been  relinquished  when  his 
worshippers  migrated  into  the  possessions  of  other 
gods.  None  the  less  was  the  acceptance  of  Jahveh 
a  new  experience,  a  spiritual  birth,  a  conscious  ac- 
ceptance of  a  deity  as  the  exodus  of  their  history, 
as  the  creative  potency  of  that  which  must  become 
a  national  self-assertion.  The  deliberate  choice  of 
Jahveh  at  such  an  historic  crisis  unconsciously  changed 
the  fundamental  conception  of  Him  and  transferred 
Him  from  nature  to  history.  The  new  faith  rose 
above  the  worship  of  the  mountain  clans  who  origi- 
nally revered  Jahveh,  in  that  it  required  a  covenant 
offered  by  the  prophetic  representative  of  that  deity. 
In  the  fact  of  such  a  covenant,  in  however  vague  form, 
were  ethical  and  spiritual  potencies  inexhaustible. 
Led  by  Jahveh  of  Hosts  the  tribes  turned  to  their 
fierce  invasions  of  Palestine.  In  their  behalf  He  left 
His  shrine,  and  another  sufficient  sanctuary  could 
never  be  found  for  Him.  He  could  not  be  domesti- 
cated in  His  new  conquests.  After  every  victorious 
demonstration  of  power,  He  is  back  again  in  His  ter- 
rible mountains,  whence  repeatedly  at  the  entreaty 
of  His  people  He  sweeps  northward  like  an  over- 
whelming storm;  till  in  the  course  of  centuries  His 


142         THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

remote  dwelling-place  rises  into  a  Heaven  that  mounts 
beyond  the  stars,  whence  He  descends  at  His  people's 
need  in  fearful  wrath  against  His  enemies.  Whatever 
images  they  made  of  Him  were  symbols  obviously 
insufficient.  Whatever  traits  of  human  weakness 
they  attributed  to  Him  His  lightnings  consumed. 
Other  deities  which  they  worshipped  as  lords  of  their 
new  lands  could  not  stand  in  His  presence.  God 
of  fearful  reprisals,  flaming  jealousies  and  furies  un- 
accountable. Yet  His  vast  grace  was  as  untraceable. 
Not  by  any  natural  connection,  but  by  His  own  favor- 
able will,  is  Jahveh  their  God.  To  Him  they  rightly 
ascribed  their  deliverance  from  Egypt,  when  as  yet 
they  knew  Him  not,  except  that  their  redemption 
was  in  His  name,  with  mighty  hand  and  stretched-out 
arm,  before  whom  the  Egyptian  pantheon  abased  it- 
self. Thus  the  religion  of  Jahveh  was  in  germ  a  reli- 
gion of  redemption.  God  of  inexhaustible  redemptive 
will  and  power,  His  ways  not  as  our  ways,  nor  His 
thoughts  as  our  thoughts,  God  who  transcends  the 
physical  and  the  natural  human,  for  man's  transcen- 
dent conquest  of  the  world. 

A  rehgious  genius  of  the  first  order  was  necessary 
for  the  beginning  of  Israel's  religion.  Moses  stood 
nearer  to  primitive  conceptions  than  any  other  of  the 
great  prophets  of  humanity  known  to  us.     Above 


THE  SEMITIC   PRINCIPLE  143 

the  mists  of  the  Mosaic  legends  towers  the  man  who 
had  made  his  own  direct  and  personal  covenant,  at 
Jahveh's  gracious  and  terrible  initiative.  His  cove- 
nant God,  whom  he  had  found  expressed  in  a  natural 
sublimity  which  was  to  him  supernatural,  was  essen- 
tially derived,  not  from  any  experience  of  the  world, 
nor  from  any  element  of  human  life  as  involved  in  the 
world,  but  from  that  incalculable  power  which  rises 
from  unfathomable  depths  of  the  human  spirit  at  the 
crises  of  history. 

This  man  who  spoke  Jahveh's  will,  standing  apart 
from  the  world  and  other  men,  in  fellowship  with  that 
awfulness,  was  able,  because  of  this  isolation,  to  sway 
men  and  events  to  Jahveh's  most  hidden  purpose,  and 
was  the  leader  of  mankind  into  ethical  and  spiritual 
communion  with  God.  He  was  the  pioneer  of  a 
spiritual  faith  that  strove  incessantly  to  disentangle 
itself  from  the  confusions  of  deity  with  His  works  and 
to  exalt  the  conception  of  the  divine  into  the  pure 
spiritual.  It  was  an  ethical  religious  consciousness 
expressed  in  the  thought  of  a  constitutive  relation 
between  God  and  man,  which  was  virtually  underived 
from  anything  but  God's  will  to  institute  the  relation 
and  man's  faith  to  accept  it.  Through  such  faith  came 
unlimited  power  to  organize  human  life.  The  law 
was  given  through  Moses.    It  was  a  law  whose  essen- 


144        THE  CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

tial  character  was  grace  and  truth,  unfolding  into 
deepest  experiences  of  the  divine  righteousness,  faith- 
fulness, and  loving-kindness. 

In  the  Jahveh  whom  Moses  declared,  was  implicit 
the  God  of  Elijah,  Hosea,  Jeremiah,  and  Jesus.  This 
divinity  of  the  mountain  wilderness,  apprehended  so 
dimly  and  through  manifestations  accessible  to  a 
religious  consciousness  so  primitive,  is  sufficient  to 
exalt  mankind  into  the  transcendent  victory  over  the 
world.  Even  there  the  fundamental  difference  was 
disclosed  between  the  Aryan  and  the  Semitic  concep- 
tions of  the  divine  Spirit.  God  flooding  with  Himself 
earth  and  sky  and  human  Hfe  upon  the  earth  and  be- 
neath the  sky, — -that  is  Aryan:  God  separate  from  the 
world  and  from  human  life  as  involved  in  the  world, 
creating  a  new  spiritual  life  in  man  for  the  spiritual 
realm  where  God  is  all  in  all,— this  is  Semitic. 

Religious  tendencies  furthest  apart  are  easily  con- 
fused with  one  another,  because  both  lack  the  dis- 
tinguishing quahties  with  which  we  are  most  familiar. 
The  Semitic  essential  of  early  Israel  is  the  opposite 
of  the  Indian  mysticism,  which  we  may  discover  to  be 
the  inevitable  outcome  of  the  Aryan  genius.  The 
world-transcending  impulse  does  not  flee  from  the 
world  nor  try  to  ignore  it.  The  world  is  the  spirit's 
mighty  antagonist,  in  the  encounter  with  which  the 


THE   SEMITIC   PRINCIPLE  145 

spirit  realizes  itself.  Nor  can  this  religious  conscious- 
ness regard  the  spiritual  as  the  final  abstraction  of  a 
world  untranscended ;  nor  as  a  negation,  which  has 
meaning  only  in  contrast  with  an  actual  which  the 
negation  is  impotent  to  overcome.  To  the  Semite  the 
spiritual  life  is  inexhaustible  and  organized  concrete- 
ness,  Kingdom  of  God;  who  is  the  living  God,  fulness 
of  life.  In  this  divine  kingdom,  this  spiritual  universe, 
the  human  spirit  unfolds  toward  an  infinity  of  personal 
life,  whose  reality  becomes  intense  in  proportion  as 
the  lower  order  of  sense  and  its  organizations  is  tran- 
scended. 

The  Semite's  spiritual  pilgrimage  must  be  begun 
by  all  but  barbarous  tribes.  In  the  tribal  organiza- 
tions, and  when  the  nation  was  achieved,  soon  to  be 
divided,  but  ever  one  in  deepest  tendency,  religion 
is  sohdaric  instead  of  personal.  Mighty  spiritual 
forces,  working  through  a  series  of  events  explicable 
by  nothing  else  than  their  result,  must  overcome  this 
Hmitation  and  set  free  the  life  of  personalities  in 
spiritual  unions.  The  self-realization  of  the  Semitic 
spirit  against  oppositions  that  seemed  to  make  the 
task  impossible  constitutes  the  significance  of  the 
history  of  Israel. 

Impossible  seemed  the  continuance  in  Canaan  of 
the  religious  consciousness  of  the  wilderness.     The 


146        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

danger  was  not  the  loss  of  Jahveh's  name,  but  the 
obhteration  of  His  difference  from  the  divinities  of  the 
Canaanite  shrines,  among  whom  He  became  indeed, 
to  the  thought  of  most  of  His  worshippers,  chief  Baal, 
absorbent  of  the  qualities  of  the  Baalim.  As  long  as 
hostilities  were  chronic  between  the  Arabian  intruders 
and  the  civilized  peoples  established  in  the  land,  a 
distinction  was  evident  between  the  gods  of  the  latter 
and  the  destroyer  who  rushed  up  from  His  flaming 
mountain  sanctuary.  But  when,  by  conquest  and 
alHance,  Israel  and  Canaanite  became  one  blood,  and 
inveterate  local  customs  became  forms  and  thoughts 
and  life  of  the  composite  folk;  when  the  legends,  rites, 
and  religious  conceptions  of  the  ancient  shrines  were 
consecrated  to  His  name;  when  foreign  influences  of 
the  same  nature  as  the  Canaanite  were  allied  with 
political  poHcies;  then  the  imminent  loss  of  the  dis- 
tinctive conception  of  Jahveh  aroused  the  prophetic 
reactions,  which  unfolded  His  transcendent  ethical 
and  spiritual  implications. 

The  spontaneous  growth  in  historic  times,  of  reli- 
gious legends  of  the  first  rank,  indicates  the  historic 
emergence  of  mighty  spiritual  forces,  original  insights, 
and  enlarged  truths.  In  the  Elijah  legend,  Jahveh's 
lonely  champion  returns  to  the  mountain  sanctuary, 
to  renew  there  the  basilar  strength  of  his  convictions. 


THE   SEMITIC   PRINCIPLE  147 

for  racked  soul  and  apparently  resultless  mission. 
Around  his  cave  flashed  and  roared  the  mountain- 
rending  volcanic  phenomena,  which  had  separated 
the  ancient  nature  god  from  the  accustomed  order  of 
the  world.  But  to  the  maturer  prophetic  conscious- 
ness Jahveh  is  no  longer  in  even  earthquake,  storm- 
wind,  and  flame.  Now  He  is  evident  in  that  wherein 
pure  spirit  may  abide,  in  the  voice  inaudible  which 
speaks  from  beyond  the  world  to  the  human  spirit 
lifted  above  the  world, — Jahveh's  almighty,  transcen- 
dent thought  and  will. 

The  prophetic  stage  of  Israel's  religion  has  its 
deepest  significance  in  its  reahzation  of  the  Semitic 
consciousness  of  God,  the  transcendent  Spirit  who 
lifts  men  into  His  own  spiritual  universe.  His  own 
eternal  life.  This  divine  transcendence  is  the  opposite 
of  deistic,  for  here  is  the  consummate  union  of  the 
divine  and  the  human.  Nor  is  there  an  irreconcilable 
division  between  the  physical  and  the  spiritual,  since 
the  spiritual  is  to  subdue  and  transform  all  things  to 
itself,  and  in  the  spiritual  all  reality  finds  its  ultimate 
nature.  The  final  monism  is  to  be  wrought  out  in  the 
transcendent  spiritual. 

The  wisdom  of  high  thought,  the  sublime  and  affect- 
ing beauty,  the  devotion  and  steadfast  faith  of  the 
great  prophets,  their  consuming  indignations,   their 


148         THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

tenderness  of  divine  love,  their  redemptive  social 
passion,  their  contempt  for  titanic  world  powers, 
which  are  but  Jahveh's  instruments  for  purposes 
beyond  secular  imaginings, — all  these  spiritual  vic- 
tories, however  mediated  by  historic  conditions  and 
expressed  in  traditional  limitations,  are  not  of  the 
world,  nor  of  man  as  a  creature  of  the  world.  The 
statesmanship  of  the  prophets  has  received  too  indis- 
criminate eulogy.  Above  all  human  praise  indeed  is 
their  vision  of  history  as  the  unfolding  of  a  redemptive 
purpose,  their  derivation  of  law  and  institution  from 
the  eternal  righteousness,  by  which  alone  national 
life  is  to  be  judged;  their  passion  of  social  righteous- 
ness, their  founding  of  national  strength  and  well-being 
upon  conditions  of  common  life,  ethically  estimated; 
their  hate  of  luxury  and  exploitation  as  disruptive 
of  the  state;  their  inclusion  of  compassion  and  love  in 
social  morality;  their  preference  of  the  many  to  the 
few,  of  the  weak  to  the  strong.  These  principles  are 
constitutive  of  the  state,  universally  indispensable, 
and  of  inexhaustible  application.  But  practical 
statesmen  the  prophets  were  not.  They  confused 
spiritual  ideals  with  practical  considerations  neces- 
sarily relative  and  transient.  Their  intrusive  solu- 
tions of  historic  issues  miscarried,  because  they  took 
into  account  only  aims  not  of  the  earthly  order  and 


THE   SEMITIC  PRINCIPLE  149 

forces  separate  from  the  secular.  Their  immediate 
application  of  transcendent  spiritual  considerations 
to  national  exigencies  was  impossible.  Jesus'  oppo- 
site procedure  was  not  a  retrogression,  but  an  advance 
along  the  way  to  the  attainment  of  the  supremacy  of 
the  spiritual  over  all  human  affairs. 

However  craven  and  mischievous  King  Ahaz' 
alliance  with  Assyria  against  the  combined  assault  of 
Syria  and  the  Northern  Kingdom,  Isaiah's  recommen- 
dation to  wait  for  Jahveh's  interposition  failed  to 
offer  a  practical  alternative.  The  unaccountable 
deliverance  from  Sennacherib,  if  it  can  be  called 
deliverance,  should  not  prejudice  the  indefatigable 
resourcefulness  of  King  Hezekiah,  in  spite  of  the 
prophet's  remonstrances,  to  preserve  the  integrity 
of  his  kingdom.  One  must  stand  on  Jeremiah's 
spiritual  height,  to  regard  his  course  through  the 
Chaldaean  invasion  as  anything  but  supine  and 
treacherous. 

The  most  obvious  thing  about  their  predictions  is 
unfulfillment.  Assyria  did  indeed  conquer  Northern 
Palestine  and  the  Syrian  peoples,  as  they  said  it  would, 
though  they  made  a  mistake  in  regard  to  Tyre.  But 
the  reason  they  gave  for  the  conquest,  the  immorality 
and  impiety  of  the  conquered,  had  small  place  in  the 
historic  nexus.    Simply  Assyria  was  too  strong  and  too 


I50         THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

determined.  Isaiah's  insistence  upon  the  inviolability 
of  Jerusalem  was  terribly  disproved.  Their  vision  of 
a  glorious  restoration  of  Israel  has  nothing  in  common 
with  the  stragghng  return  from  Babylon — if  even  that 
is  historic — and  the  petty  fortunes  of  the  Jewish  com- 
munity. If  it  is  urged  that  the  predictions  were  ful- 
filled in  a  figurative  sense,  that  is  to  maintain  the 
unfavorable  judgment. 

The  sublimities  of  the  prophets  are  revealed  only 
7  to  one  who  acknowledges  their  incapacities.  Then 
we  exchange  Aryan  for  Semitic  tests.  In  time  of 
darkest  tragedy  they  made  the  eternal  God  the 
dwelling  place  of  the  expatriated  human  soul.  They 
imparted  the  vision  of  the  righteous  God,  and  of  the 
ethical  and  spiritual  communion  of  the  human  soul 
with  Him.  They  found  their  way  and  mankind's 
way  to  the  spiritual  order  above  the  physical,  with 
power  to  reahze  itself  against  the  world,  which  it 
makes  the  servant  of  the  higher  purpose.  They 
advanced  the  Semitic  task  of  the  transcendent  con- 
quest -of  the  world.  The  psalmists  that  followed 
them  completed  them.  Genuine  development  of 
prophetism  are  the  clearer  voices  of  the  transcendent 
spiritual,  calling  up  to  itself  the  spiritual  nature  which 
we  are.  No  departure  from  the  religion  of  the 
prophets,  but  its  clarified  and  consummate  expres- 


THE   SEMITIC   PRINCIPLE  151 

sion,  is  the  Old  Testament's  most  spiritual  utter- 
ance: 

Who  is  mine  in  Heaven? 

Nothing  on  earth  but  Thee  I  desire. 

Flesh  fails  and  my  life; 

But  Jahveh  is  my  life's  power,  and  my  home  forever. 

This  faith  has  to  contend  with  inflexible  oppositions. 
It  must  also  surmount  its  own  limitations,  which 
were,  notably,  the  political,  the  legalistic,  and  the 
eschatological. 

The  political,  not  the  particularistic,  was  a  limita- 
tion of  the  prophets.  They  broke  through,  in  prin- 
ciple, national  exclusiveness,  which  closed  in  again 
with  Judaism.  In  the  intense  patriotism  of  prophetic 
Israel  universalism  was  early  germinant.  The  God 
who  rules  all  things  from  above,  God  of  all  nations, 
though  they  know  Him  not,  does  not  limit  his  grace, 
any  more  than  His  power,  to  the  destinies  of  the  heir 
of  Abraham.  The  first  of  the  known  prophets  whose 
message  is  preserved  in  writing  sees  in  his  vision  of 
judgment  unreheved — for  the  consoling  close  of  the 
book  of  Amos  is  not  his — the  annihilation  of  the  chosen 
people,  but  does  not  imagine  that  in  this  catastrophe 
the  purpose  of  the  Most  High  can  fail.  Universal 
are  the  ethical  principles  by  which  Israel  is  judged, 


152        THE  CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

and  universal  must  be  their  working.  The  hopes  of 
other  prophets,  which  pass  beyond  the  judgment, 
to  Israel's  conversion  and  restoration,  are  assurances 
of  a  world-renewal  in  which  all  mankind  may  partici- 
pate. 

But  the  limitation  is,  that  spiritual  salvation  is 
bound  up  with  poHtical  organization.  It  is  Israel, 
Moab,  Egypt,  Assyria,  which  are  to  be  judged  and 
saved.  To  the  prophets,  as  to  the  ancient  world  in 
general,  the  personal  unit,  to  speak  in  modern  phrase, 
was  not  the  individual  but  the  state.  Therefore 
their  spiritual  ideals  were  confused  with  provisional 
ends,  to  the  detriment  of  both.  The  tragic  separation 
of  their  spiritual  experience  from  the  fleshliness  of 
the  people,  which  they  could  not  illumine,  and  the 
stultification  of  their  prophecies  of  the  restored  nation, 
forced  religion  to  seek  its  sanctuary  in  the  individual 
soul,  in  which  awoke  personal  powers,  aspirations, 
and  assurances  of  life  eternal.  From  this  spiritual 
center,  to  be  yet  more  perfectly  attained,  radiates 
the  spiritual  humanity  independent  of  political  forms. 

The  political  limitation  was  followed  by  the  legalis- 
tic. The  political  organization  lost  its  significance  with 
the  loss  of  political  liberty.  The  expectations  of  the 
prophets  of  the  exile  must  be  postponed  to  another 
world-order.    The  national  hopes  changed  to  personal 


THE   SEMITIC   PRINCIPLE  153 

aspirations  of  great  souls.  But  a  refuge  more  accessible 
than  the  kingdom  of  the  spirit  was  required  for  daily 
needs  and  common  minds.  The  timorous  religiosity 
of  disillusioned  Judaism  built  protective,  separative 
walls,  out  of  materials  which  the  prophets  had  dis- 
carded, cultus  and  rite  and  rule — poor  stuff,  but  what 
else  was  available? — and  they  left  their  mean  con- 
structions open  to  the  sky.  Within  these  confines, 
as  many  a  psalm  bears  witness,  unquestioning  obedi- 
ence to  Jahveh's  statutes  found  something  of  the  joy 
of  free  divine  companionship. 

Yet  in  these  observances  a  religion  of  redemption 
degenerates  to  a  rehgion  of  law. 

The  transcendence  of  deity  receives  indeed  fresh 
emphasis  from  legalism,  in  faithfulness  to  the  Semitic 
tradition,  but  it  is  not  a  transcendence  that  calls  up 
the  transcendent  spirit  of  man  into  world-conquering 
divine  fellowship.  In  the  sublime  invitation,  "Be  ye 
holy,  for  I  am  holy,"  the  repeated  word  has  now  two 
different  meanings.  The  transcendent  God  is  irrec- 
oncilably apart;  so  the  theology  of  Judaism  conceives 
Him.  The  motive  for  the  keeping  of  a  law  which  is 
not  identified  with  the  life  of  the  divine  Spirit  in  the 
human  spirit,  must  be  a  reward  external  to  the  realiza- 
tions of  God's  life  in  man.  Such  recompense  consists 
of  the  lower  goods. 


154        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

Incessant  are  the  demands  upon  the  supreme  law- 
giver for  payment  in  wealth  and  length  of  days  and 
many  children  and  satisfied  desire  upon  one's  enemies. 
When  these  requisitions  are  honored  there  is  uncon- 
trite  assumption  of  merit;  when  withheld,  discontent 
and  envy,  unfilial  importunity  of  self-centered  prayer; 
in  either  case,  ingenious  inventions  of  new  legahsms, 
scrupulous  formalisms,  and  unctuous  hypocrisies. 
These  lusts  of  material  things  lack  the  Aryan  magna- 
nimity of  world-conquest:  the  pauperized  soul  begs 
a  world  unappropriated,  uncompleted.  To  the  more 
tender  consciences  the  withholding  of  these  favors  was 
the  source  of  dolorous  introspections.  If  recompense 
has  been  denied,  must  not  desert  be  absent?  It  is 
the  purest  hearts  that  bewail  secret  sins  in  the  Hght 
of  God's  countenance  and  mourn  over  years  con- 
sumed by  the  divine  wrath.  Against  such  morbid 
humiliations  the  healthy  sense  of  radical  integrity 
asserts  itself,  sometimes  in  assurance  of  ultimate 
vindication,  yet  how  long  delayed;  sometimes  in  the 
challenge  of  the  right  of  the  All-holy  to  cite  His  neces- 
sarily imperfect  creature  before  the  throne  of  absolute 
perfectness;  sometimes  in  fearful  doubts  of  the  moral 
order  of  the  world.  Yet  through  these  paths  of  death- 
shadow,  the  ineradicable  Semitic  aspiration  may  find 
its  way  to  the  beatific  vision,  where  it  abhors  itself 


THE  SEMITIC  PRINCIPLE    '  155 

and  repents  in  dust  and  ashes.  Here  are  also  the 
meek  of  the  land,  too  simple-hearted  for  such  self- 
tormentings,  who  make  no  claim  upon  the  world, 
happy  just  to  do  God's  commands.  These  souls 
stand  at  the  threshold  of  the  spiritual  universe,  over 
whose  portal  is  written,  "Blessed  are  the  pure  in 
heart,  for  they  shall  see  God." 

Legalism  must  at  length  seek  its  recompense  in  the 
age  to  come,  since  payment  is  so  uncertain  in  this. 
The  third  limitation  of  the  Semitic  principle  in 
Israel  is  other-worldliness.  This  hope  of  the  glorious 
future  connects  itself  with  the  ancient  prophecy  of 
the  day  of  Jahveh,  when,  by  His  almighty  act,  right- 
eousness is  awarded  complete  triumph  over  the  earth. 
But  the  vast  prophetic  vision  becomes  as  rigidly 
dogmatic  as  the  legalism  which  appropriated  it, 
and  assumes  shapes  as  fantastic  as  are  legalistic 
demands  for  recompense  when  extended  into  the  end- 
less and  pronounced  by  higher  aspirations  to  be  for- 
ever incapable  of  satisfaction.  Suddenly  out  of 
Heaven  flaming  judgment  and  ineffable  bliss  shall 
descend  upon  the  world.  Those  who  have  died  in 
faithfulness  to  the  law  shall  rise  from  their  graves, 
to  share  this  redemption  with  the  righteous  who  have 
not  tasted  death,  and  possessing  bodies  no  less  intact, 
for  the  physical  delights  of  what  is  still  the  earthly  order. 


156         THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

The  Semitic  spirit  seems  to  end  in  the  denial  of  its 
essential  nature.  Faihng  of  its  transcendent  possibil- 
ity, it  threatens  to  sink  into  its  only  alternative,  the 
apotheosis  of  the  physical  and  earthly.  Yet  certain 
of  Semitism's  finer  elements  survived  even  here.  Le- 
galism itself  kept  its  ignoble  expectation  clear  of  illicit 
sensuaHties.  The  ethical  nature  of  the  prophetic 
affirmation  still  asserted  itself.  The  kingdom  of  God, 
coming  without  human  cooperation,  from  the  All-holy, 
must  be  a  gift  worthy  of  the  transcendent  giver.  But 
divine  power  in  the  human  soul,  as  almighty  as  this 
irruption  of  final  judgment  and  redemption  is  con- 
ceived to  be,  is  indispensable,  if  the  supernal  hope 
is  to  become  purely  spiritual. 

The  course  of  this  perplexed  religious  development 
was  beset  with  irreconcilable  oppositions.  Israel's 
hardness  of  heart  to  the  spiritual  implications  of  the 
religion  of  Jahveh  was  not  exaggerated  by  prophet 
and  psalmist,  by  Jesus  and  His  apostles.  The  Aryan 
is  less  intractable  to  the  Semitic  spirituality  than  the 
Semite  himself  may  be  when  unfaithful  to  his  Semit- 
ism.  For  the  impulse  of  the  former  is  to  seek  a  world- 
conquest  in  noble  developments  of  soul.  That  con- 
quest, no  less  than  the  Semitic  endeavor,  embraces 
ideals,  devotions,  ethical  and  spiritual  aspirations, 
and  between  the  possessors  of  these  qualities,  though 


THE   SEMITIC   PRINCIPLE  157 

they  follow  divergent  paths,  for  different  ends,  there 
arise  mutual  reverence  and  premonition  of  final 
alliance.  But  the  Semite  who  rejects  his  birthright 
falls  below  the  amenities  and  harmonies  of  Aryan  life. 
The  modern  Jew  is  an  inveterate  Semite  of  Semites, 
his  Semitism  stiffened  by  unspeakable  Aryan  injus- 
tices, which  still  continue  in  undiscriminating  hate  and 
brutal  misconception.  With  all  his  power  in  the  Aryan 
world,  he  is  a  stranger  and  a  sojourner  in  it,  as  all 
his  fathers  were,  and  a  destructive  force  against  it, 
except  when,  transcending  it,  he  summons  it  to  mag- 
nificent fulfillments.  Still  his  spiritual  genius  and 
devotion  manifest  themselves  in  flaming  ideals.  For 
human  liberty,  in  forms  that  seem  to  ignore  historic 
possibilities,  Jews  are  radiant  martyrs.  These  men 
are  the  prophets  of  a  bewilderingly  ideal  reconstruction 
of  society,  though  they  often  proclaim  it  as  a  material- 
istic evangel.  Against  social  conditions  that  repress 
the  spirit,  they,  even  when  they  repudiate  the  spirit, 
are  humanity's  consummate  rage.  The  true  children 
of  Abraham,  reverent  heirs  and  custodians  of  the  uni- 
versal promise,  rise  into  magnanimities  of  vision  and 
service,  and  from  that  Heaven  they  shed  compas- 
sionate blessing  not  only  upon  the  unfortunate  of 
their  own  people,  but  upon  mankind,  and  in  their 
homes  and  hearts  we  find,  not  the  grace  and  worth 


158        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

of  the  Aryan,  but  transcendence  and  transformation 
of  our  best.  Their  spiritual  leaders  are  consecrated 
to  the  development  of  their  religious  inheritance  to 
its  universal  implications.  They  find  themselves 
in  the  congenial  presence  of  the  Man  of  Nazareth. 
It  is  they  who  can  understand  Him  as  the  Aryan 
cannot,  without  their  interpretation  of  the  supreme 
Semite  and  human.  In  their  growing  appreciation 
of  their  own  Jesus  there  may  be  found  at  length  the 
synthesis  of  the  two  leaderships  of  humanity,  the 
domination  of  Aryan  civilization  by  higher  spiritual 
forces,  and  its  direction  to  transcendent  ends.  In 
this  task  the  Semitic  genius  must  be  left  unhampered 
by  Aryan  interferences,  which  have  always  obscured 
the  Master.  For  His  Name's  sake  let  these  men  stand 
apart  as  long  as  they  will,  from  the  Church,  with 
which  the  organizing  power  of  Jesus'  spiritual  brother- 
/,  liness  shall  at  length  unite  them,  and  forever  apart 
''  from  the  dogmas  which  have  perverted  His  Gospel. 
Islam  also  discloses  the  original  and  ineradicable 
Semitic  quality.  It  is  a  Semitism  more  undeveloped 
than  perverted;  its  attainment  of  faith  in  the  one 
transcendent  deity  is  separate  from  its  other  quahties, 
as  Allah  is  separate  from  man's  life  and  world.  It  is  a 
religion  of  law  rather  than  redemption,  but  its  legalism 
lacks  the  ethical  dignity  of  the  Jewish  legaHsm,  be- 


THE   SEMITIC   PRINCIPLE  159 

cause,  unlike  that,  it  has  not  descended  from  redemp- 
tive conceptions,  which  in  Judaism  affect  the  lower 
forms.  It  cannot  rid  itself  of  the  savageries  of  the 
desert,  nor  of  worse  vices  which  result  from  perverse 
imitations  of  Aryan  civilization.  Yet  none  of  its  in- 
humanities can  obscure  the  spiritual  glory  and  self- 
propagating  energy  of  its  supreme  affirmation,  "There 
is  no  god  but  God."  It  lives  in  a  brutal  world,  which 
it  projects  into  the  hereafter,  but  it  sees  the  pure  sky. 
From  its  unpolluted  Heaven  divine  refreshings  may 
yet  descend  upon  the  lands  which  it  has  devastated. 
Monotheism  is  prophecy  of  the  eternal  life  in  man, 
and  in  many  personal  experiences  within  Mohammed- 
anism that  prophecy  has  been  fulfilled.  But  with 
Semitic  obduracy,  which  is  the  obverse  of  Semitic 
faithfulness,  it  resists  the  fulfillments  of  its  implicit 
prophecy,  and  opposes  Semitic  Christianity  even 
more  fiercely  than  it  has  battled  against  Aryan  civil- 
ization. Recent  events  raise  questions  which  before 
have  seemed  to  be  without  pertinence:  Will  Islam 
change  its  attitude  toward  Aryan  civilization?  Will 
it  recognize  its  own  premonitions  of  Semitic  Christian- 
ity? 

Against  the  oppositions  and  in  alHance  with  the 
favoring  forces  manifested  in  every  stage  of  Semitism, 
the   Man   of   Nazareth   fulfilled   His  mission.     The 


i6o        THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

limitations  that  beset  His  inheritance  of  the  prophetic 
religion  of  Israel  formed  a  large  part  of  the  conditions 
of  His  task.  How  that  task  was  fulfilled  under  such 
conditions  will  be  considered  in  a  later  chapter.  We 
observe  now,  in  anticipation,  how  exquisitely  and 
mightily  human  was  His  simple-hearted  acceptance 
of  prophetic  nationalism,  of  legalism,  and  of  the 
eschatological  hope  of  His  people.  He  preserved  the 
values  of  these  limitations  and  thus  freed  Himself 
from  them. 

First  of  patriots.  He  was  so  absorbed  in  seeking  the 
lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel  that  He  grudged 
every  moment  which  His  sympathy  was  forced  to 
sacrifice  to  a  Gentile  need.  He  was  content  to  leave 
the  salvation  of  those  outside  Judaism  to  forces  which, 
without  His  intentional  participation,  would  bring 
heathen  multitudes  from  East  and  West  and  North 
and  South  to  recline  with  the  redeemed  of  Israel  in 
the  Kingdom's  high  festival.  Yet  His  devotion  to  His 
fellow-countrymen  was  that  compassion  for  universal 
human  necessities,  that  recognition  of  universal  human 
potencies,  which  brings  the  whole  world  to  his  feet. 

He  was  dutiful  child  of  the  law,  loving  each  statute 
because  it  came  to  Him  as  His  Father's  command. 
His  will  accomplished  itself  in  union  with  the  all-holy 
will.    Unquestioning  obedience  unfolded  its  redemp- 


THE   SEMITIC   PRINCIPLE  i6i 

tive  trust  and  love.  Thus  was  attained  for  Himself 
and  His  disciples  the  liberty  of  the  glory  of  the  sons 
of  God,  and  all  thought  of  external  recompense  passed 
into  the  union,  in  character  and  life,  of  faithful  Son 
with  infinitely  loving  Father. 

The  Kingdom  that  descends  from  Heaven  by  God's 
unallied  power,  was  to  Him  catastrophe  so  imminent, 
that  the  expectations  of  the  New  Testament  writers 
seem,  in  comparison  with  His  certainty,  faint  echoes 
of  a  hope  deferred.  So  close  was  that  advent  that  it 
became  immediately  realized  in  Him,  descended  into 
His  soul,  an  absolutely  spiritual  possession,  God's 
eternal  Hfe  for  him  and  all  who  will  receive  it  from 
Him,  and  with  power  of  the  transcendent  world- 
conquest,  to  lead  to  spiritual  consummations,  to  trans- 
form by  spiritual  forces,  every  man  and  the  life  of 
mankind. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE    SEPARATENESS    OF    JESUS    FROM    ARYAN 
CIVILIZATION 

In  comparison  with  the  Semite's  arduous  and  lonely 
path,  the  Aryan  progress  is  that  of  a  magnificent  army, 
fighting  its  way  along  valleys  rich,  genial,  beautiful. 
It  is  not  this  advance  which  Jesus  had  in  mind  when 
He  spoke  of  the  broad  way  that  leadeth  to  destruction: 
the  Aryan  progress  had  no  place  in  His  thought.  This 
is  no  path  of  ease;  this  also  has  to  be  conquered. 
Forces  of  barbarism  continually  oppose,  and,  when  de- 
feated, break  into  guerrilla  bands.  Many  are  the 
traitors  in  the  ranks,  who  exploit  mankind's  common 
conquests,  which  have  beneficent  uses  only  as  they  are 
common  possessions.  Numerous  are  the  desertions 
to  the  enemies  of  civilization.  Multitudes,  having 
accomplished  stages  of  the  way,  refuse  to  go  farther, 
settle  down  ignobly  in  places  that  seem  good  to  them, 
and  it  is  their  fate  to  be  overwhelmed  by  the  barbar- 
isms that  hang  on  the  rear  of  civilization  no  less  than 
they  resist  its  front.    Superb  have  been  the  victories 

of  the  host,  but  disheartening  its  defeats;  nor  is  there 

162 


THE   ARYAN   CIVILIZATION  163 

certainty  of  final  conquest,  for  there  are  deadlier 
enemies  than  are  apparent;  and  men  cannot  be  sure 
that  the  possessions  won  shall  fulfill  their  promises 
of  worth  and  joy. 

Yet  these  seem  pusillanimous  dreads,  continually 
discredited  by  the  evident  gains.  Every  territory 
acquired  yields  supplies  for  further  adventure.  Forces 
seemingly  inexhaustible  utilize  every  victory,  rise 
indomitable  after  defeat.  Reinforcements  pour  in :  the 
Hellenic  genius  is  vanguard  and  strategist,  but  it  is 
allied  by  every  Aryan  power,  and  by  men  of  other 
blood  who  receive  its  spirit.  No  small  part  of  our 
present  confidence  is  the  gift  of  the  new  historic  science 
whose  special  contribution  is  to  reveal  additional 
Aryan  potencies  for  the  Hellenic  genius  to  direct,  that 
we  may  know  and  use  whatever  proves  itself  effective 
for  the  Aryan's  appropriative  and  completive  con- 
quest of  the  world. 

One  of  the  great  historic  disasters  is  the  loss  of  the 
Persian  genius  in  a  direct  moulding  influence  upon  the 
developments  of  Aryan  civilization.  The  Greek  en- 
countered a  Persia  perversely  Semitized,  decadent,  and 
barbarized,  both  insolent  and  insidious  against  the 
culture  which  gained  self-consciousness  by  opposing 
the  colossal  antagonist.  Few  Greek  thinkers  recog- 
nized in  the  archenemy  the  quality  akin  to  the  Hellenic 


1 64        THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

genius.  The  Greek  civilization  was  forced  to  oppose 
Persia,  beat  it  back,  overwhelm  it,  establish  itself 
in  the  other's  place,  treat  it  as  alien,  for  the  sake  of  its 
own  integrity.  After  the  Macedonian  conquest  the 
remainders  of  Persian  influence  seemed  infectious 
rottenness.  Wonderful  as  was  the  all  but  conquest 
of  our  civilization  by  the  Mithra  worship,  the  depth 
and  permanence  of  that  influence  must  not  be  ex- 
aggerated. The  later  resurgences  of  Persian  force  and 
beauty,  which  ought  to  quahfy  our  judgment  of  it 
under  the  Achsemenidae,  were  apart  from  the  main 
current  of  history. 

It  is  the  Semite  who  has  preserved  for  Aryanism 
this  valuable  element  of  it.  The  eschatology  of 
Judaism  and  original  Christianity,  involving  a  cos- 
mology and  a  philosophy  of  history,  leaving  no  part 
of  life  unaffected,  fashioning  practical  views  and  aims, 
was  from  Persian  sources,  though  modified  by  Baby- 
lonia, and  transcendently  semitized  by  Judaism  and 
Jesus.  So  that  today  our  ethic  and  religion  are  largely 
Iranian,  a  juster  term  than  Persian,  and  connoting 
alliance  with  our  civilization,  not  barbaric  opposition. 
The  Iranian  energy  demands  to  be  taken  back  from 
the  Semitic  influence  which  has  so  strangely  preserved 
it  for  us,  and  to  be  recovered  from  the  transcendent  to 
the  appropriative  world-conquest. 


THE   ARYAN   CIVILIZATION  165 

The  Greek  views  the  world,  so  far  as  conquerable, 
as  a  world  of  essential  harmony.  To  gain  the  inner 
principle  of  that  harmony,  to  organize  the  world 
thereby  between  the  inaccessibles  above  and  the  im- 
practicables  beneath,  this  is  the  Greek's  world- 
conquest.  The  Iranian's  fundamental  conviction, 
however  difficult  the  tracing  of  its  ramifications  and 
developments,  is  the  all  but  absolute  disharmony  of 
the  world.  Good  and  evil,  physical,  ethical,  and 
spiritual,  clash  everywhere.  Evil  is  not,  as  to  the 
Greek,  the  unorganizable,  but  an  organism  only  less 
symmetrically  formed  than  the  empire  of  the  good. 
Incessant  is  manhood's  strife,  against  serpent  and 
wild  beast,  noxious  plant  and  insect,  diseases  and  their 
demons;  against  night  and  soHtudes  and  every  evil 
spell;  against  moral  and  intellectual  darkness,  re- 
pressive conditions,  evil  men,  evil  institutions,  and 
the  malign  angels  of  them  all;  against  a  bad  god,  with 
half  the  universe  on  his  side.  The  interminable  spaces 
are  a  truceless  battlefield,  where  the  hosts  of  the  world- 
ruler  of  this  darkness  charge  the  celestial  armies  of  the 
good  God.  Every  servant  of  the  good  fights  right  at 
his  post  in  the  far-flung  alHance  for  the  victory  that 
is  to  be.    Thus  spake  Zarathustra. 

The  Iranian's  militancy  needs   Greek  leadership. 
One  must  know  what  one  fights  for.    The  goal  of  its 


1 66        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

warfare  is  the  Greek  culture,  with  its  harmonizing 
of  the  physical,  the  intellectual,  the  esthetic,  the 
ethical,  and  the  spiritual,  in  the  appropriation  and 
completion  of  the  world  by  the  human  soul.  But  the 
goal  itself  is  dynamic,  not  static:  there  are  always 
new  worlds  to  conquer  for  the  soul  that  expands  to 
conquer  them.  The  Greek  genius  needs  the  Iranian 
energy,  which  refuses  to  accept  as  final  any  incarnation 
of  the  spirit  of  world-conquest,  and  judges  the  soul's 
attainments  its  deadliest  enemies,  because  deadening. 
It  is  revolutionary,  inconoclastic,  the  antagonist  of 
every  classicism.  It  refuses  to  abide  in  any  industrial 
regime,  political  organization,  esthetic  expression, 
philosophical  construction  (pragmatism  is  Iranian) 
or  in  any  assumption  of  ethical  or  religious  finahty. 
Into  every  determinism  it  flings  freedom,  and  into 
every  monism,  differentiation.  It  snatches  the  human 
spirit  out  of  every  necessitated  evolutionary  process, 
thus  denying  that  necessity  is  fundamental  in  the 
process;  out  of  every  subservience  to  natural  law, 
whose  absolute  mechanical  fixity  it  contradicts,  out  of 
subjection  to  any  law  that  is  not  the  free  self-expres- 
sion of  the  human  soul,  and  elastic  for  growths  of 
soul.  It  goes  forth  conquering  and  to  conquer.  Yet 
all  its  warfare  is  constructive  when  it  finds  its  normal 
alliance  with  the  Greek  genius.    It  is  forever  militant 


THE   ARYAN   CIVILIZATION  167 

because  it  will  not  rest  in  any  incomplete  appropria- 
tion of  the  world.  It  surges  up  today  against  re- 
pressive social  conditions,  against  political  and  in- 
dustrial organizations  in  which  the  potencies  of 
every  man  lack  equal  and  unrestricted  opportunity. 
It  rages  against  every  scholasticism,  ecclesiasticism, 
and  traditionalism.  It  is  civilization  militant.  It  is 
altogether  Hellenic  because  it  is  the  energizing  of 
the  Hellenic  spirit. 

This  moral  consciousness  rejects  the  imposition 
of  any  decalogue  from  above,  that  is,  from  without. 
It  is  too  ethical  to  accept  any  closed  ethic.  Righteous- 
ness is  not  taken  from  dictation,  but  character  fights 
out  new  visions  and  realizations  of  the  good.  There 
can  be  no  Hellenic  concession  to  the  physical,  no 
yielding  of  the  soul  to  the  external.  The  ethical 
is  not  that  harmony  of  the  soul  in  all  its  elements  and 
with  the  world  without,  which  the  Greek  would  have 
on  too  easy  terms.  Conscience  stands  at  the  soul's 
inviolable  portal  with  drawn  sword,  refusing  to  recog- 
nize a  friend  till  the  countersign  is  given.  The  Iran- 
ian Puritanism  is  conscious  of  the  inner  strife,  the 
traitors  within  the  citadel.  The  passions  are  not,  as 
in  Plato's  too  indiscriminate  parable,  unruly  steeds, 
to  be  subdued  to  reason,  the  charioteer,  but  among 
the  passions  are  beasts  of  prey,  to  be  slain.    The  inner 


1 68        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

conflict  is  the  fiercer;  but  this  insight  escapes  the 
sudden  disillusion  of  a  soul  that  finds  itself  wretchedly 
chained  to  a  body  of  death  and  cries  out,  "Who  shall 
deliver  me!"  This  human  dignity  is  conscious  of 
its  own  indefeasible  powers  of  righteousness.  This 
ethical  religion  is  a  religion  of  redemption,  but  self- 
wrought.  Its  premise  is  not  moral  helplessness. 
None  the  less  is  it  religion,  aware  of  the  divine  right- 
eousness as  constitutive  of  the  essential  of  manhood. 
Therefore  this  ethic  is  allied  with  God  for  the  warfare 
against  everything  in  the  universe  that  is  not  accord- 
ing to  His  will. 

The  present  mood  of  our  fundamental  thinking 
seeks  the  Iranian  mihtancy.  Occidental  metaphysic, 
necessarily  Hellenic,  has  been  too  Hellenic:  it  has 
lingered  in  a  phase  which  the  unfolding  of  the  Hellenic 
inheritance  has  outgrown,  yet  has  tried  to  ignore 
the  residuum  which  the  Greek  sanely  acknowledged. 
Its  assumption  has  been  the  unity  of  all  things  as  an 
intellectual  principle,  not  as  ethical  attainment 
with  intellect  as  interpreter.  Therefore  its  dominant 
thought  has  been  too  quietistic,  too  satisfied  that  what- 
ever is  is  good, — or  else  irremediably  bad — and  that 
the  things  we  know  not  now  we  shall  know  hereafter 
as  having  always  had  their  place  in  the  harmonious 
whole. 


THE   ARYAN   CIVILIZATION  169 

Therefore  men  with  the  world's  work  to  do  leave 
the  philosophers  to  their  ingenuities.  Thought  and 
life  are  dissevered,  as  they  were  not  of  old,  when 
thought  and  life  were  of  the  same  mood.  Intellectual- 
is  tic  monism  paralyzes  the  most  urgent  practicalities; 
its  deterministic  ethic  pronounces  itself  unethical. 
Our  teachers  have  taken  too  lightly  the  bridging  of 
the  gulf  between  the  spiritual  and  the  mechanical. 
Adventuring  across  from  what  they  have  flung  out 
from  either  side,  we  fall  into  nescience.  Too  facile  has 
been  their  reduction  of  the  irrational  to  the  rational, 
their  uniting  of  the  good  and  the  evil, — which  is  yet 
not  somehow  good.  Kant  was  more  serious,  but  he 
was  Iranian  and  Hebrew,  as  well  as  Greek,  and  they 
have  not  all  been  Iranian  and  Hebrew  and  Greek  who 
have  presumed  to  speak  in  his  name.  The  Hellene 
has  indeed  formulated  the  fundamental  questions, 
and  the  tools  of  constructive  thought  are  wrought 
in  the  forges  of  Hephaistos.  But  the  contemporary 
Iranian  vision  of  the  universe  looks  forward,  not 
back,  and  moves  as  conscious  of  the  primal  motion. 
Our  deepest  consciousness  is  not  of  assimilative  in- 
tellect, but  of  transforming,  creative  will.  All  things 
are  one  to  the  energizing  will  that  makes  them  one. 
We  know  two  gods,  Ahriman  and  Ormazd,  two 
kingdoms,  of  Hell  and  Heaven;  it  is  conflict  that  is 


lyo        THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

universal.  Can  the  synthesis  be  fought  out  on  this 
line,  even  if  it  takes  forever?  There  is  a  growing 
determination  to  attempt  it.  If  this  path  becomes 
an  impasse,  there  is  one  recourse,  the  Semitic  principle. 

Every  element  of  the  Aryan  civilization  completes 
itself  in  a  religious  conviction,  and  the  noblest  of  these 
faiths  is  the  Iranian,  in  our  present  consciousness  of 
its  nature.  It  is  the  religion  of  the  divine  alliance 
for  the  divine  purposes.  Its  heroic  devotion  is  not  of 
the  Semitic  kind.  What  the  modern  Iranian  wants 
of  God  is  not  grace,  but  reinforcements  of  his  native 
powers.  His  kingdom  of  salvation  is  not  of  an  order 
essentially  higher  than  the  Hellenic.  With  religious  in- 
tensity he  grasps  the  Aryan  principle  of  world-conquest 
by  the  appropriation  and  completion  of  the  world. 

The  Semitic  Bible  he  finds  congenial  in  its  militant 
earnestness,  but  the  names  of  the  gods  must  be 
frequently  interchanged.  It  is  the  jealous  serpent 
that  says,  "Of  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and 
evil  ye  shall  not  eat,  lest  ye  die."  Against  an  infernal 
sword  the  servants  of  Ormazd  beat  their  way  to  the 
tree  of  Hfe.  There  are  fruit-trees  of  which  man  must 
not  eat,  but  they  are  to  be  incontinently  cut  down. 
Not  of  the  evil  seed  of  Cain  is  the  genealogy  of  those 
who  discover  the  arts  of  civilization  and  develop 
the  secular  powers  of  humanity,  and  it  is  Ahriman  who 


THE  ARYAN   CIVILIZATION  171 

brings  the  flood  to  destroy  their  works.  The  Iranian 
adopts  the  calendar  of  the  saints  who  subdued  king- 
doms, wrought  righteousness,  waxed  vaHant  in  fight, 
turned  to  flight  entrenched  armies  of  ahens.  The 
David  who  did  not  write  the  Psalms  is  the  man  after 
his  own  heart.  He  does  not  suppose  that  the  meek 
inherit  the  earth.  On  the  crumbhng  walls  of  Jeru- 
salem he  fights  to  the  end  against  Nebuchadnezzar, 
Jeremiah,  and  their  god.  His  Messiah  wrests  from 
Caesar  the  stolen  coins  and  effaces  the  imperial  image 
and  superscription,  and  announces  Himself  the  divider 
of  the  inheritance  which  man  has  withheld  from  his 
brother  man.  Into  this  Gospel  resonant  voices  trans- 
pose the  message  of  Jesus,  and  ingenuous  youth  ac- 
cepts it  as  Christianity. 

Hellenic-Roman  is  our  civilization,  though  hospi- 
table to  every  Aryan  element.  It  seems  more  Roman 
when  we  regard  external  constructions,  more  Greek 
to  those  whose  chief  interest  is  in  vital  joys  and  values. 
Rome's  task  was  to  make  permanent  constructions 
for  the  Greek  soul  and  body  to  live  in.  When  our 
Roman  inheritance  has  lost  the  Greek,  the  result  has 
been  formahsm,  aridity,  lifelessness,  and  decadence 
into  corruption.  At  such  times  men  have  longed  for 
the  water  of  Hellenic  wells,  for  whose  general  avail- 
ability Roman  aqueducts  must  be  constructed. 


172         THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

Rome  is  the  least  ideal  and  spiritual  expression  of 
the  Aryan  world-conquest.  For  that  reason  Rome 
should  be  studied  in  its  prosaic  religion,  to  show  the 
Roman's  deficiency  in  these  quaUties  by  their  absence 
in  the  realm  most  congenial  to  them.  The  homely 
workaday  divinities  of  husbandries  and  household 
drudgeries,  the  solid,  respectable,  parochial  old  gods, 
gave  themselves  to  their  duties  with  such  minute 
painstaking  as  to  become  actually  absorbed  in  them. 
The  attempt  to  identify  these  objects  of  worship 
with  Hellenic  deities  was  as  absurd  as  Christianity's 
efforts  to  express  its  spiritual  universe  in  terms  of 
the  Babylonian  cosmogony.  The  old-fashioned  nu- 
mina  kept  to  kitchen  and  garden  while  Apollo  and 
Aphrodite  were  entertained  in  the  atrium.  The 
Roman  religion  still  remained  Roman,  the  binding 
back  of  each  secular  affair  within  its  proper  Hmitations. 
It  is  the  religion  of  that  divine  immanence  where  the 
divine  is  so  at  home  in  things  that  it  has  no  distinct 
meaning  of  its  own. 

When  the  city  Rome  united  secular  interests,  the 
city  became  the  chief  god.  Under  this  deity  the 
ancient  divine  regulators  of  affairs  enlarged  and 
consolidated  their  labors.  So  when  the  city  became 
the  organizer  of  the  world  of  civiHzation,  not  by  the 
realization  of  an  ideal  passion  but  by  the  forcings  of  a 


THE  ARYAN   CIVILIZATION  173 

plain  necessity.  When  power  came  to  be  centralized 
in  a  permanent  dictatorship,  the  emperor  was  object 
of  worship,  but  in  the  same  old  material  fashion.  The 
cult  of  the  emperor  was  not  a  Greek  importation, 
but  a  self-consistent  Roman  development.  Its 
form  was  suggested  by  the  Greek  apotheosis,  but  its 
substance  was  the  recognition  of  the  center  of  political 
power  as  supreme  in  the  actual  world.  It  was  at 
once  a  political  device  and  a  straightforward  state- 
ment of  facts.  The  emperors  who  were  worthy  to 
represent  Rome  were  all  the  more  plain  everyday 
men  for  being  deified.  If  the  Eastern  provinces  failed 
to  understand,  their  misapprehensions  were  of  use. 
But  a  secularity  greater  than  the  imperial  combina- 
tion of  offices  is  supreme  in  things  as  they  are.  It  is 
to  Roman  law  that  greater  deference  is  to  be  paid,  law 
not  as  descending  from  celestial  realms,  but  worked 
out  meticulously  and  exhaustively  to  arrange  actual 
conditions,  practicable  poHtical  and  social  institu- 
tions. As  rights  of  person  and  property,  as  contracts, 
governmental  functions,  and  international  relations, 
the  old  Roman  gods  continue  with  sober  dignity, 
receiving  the  same  kind  of  recognition  as  when  they 
bore  the  names  of  lane  and  market  place  and  processes 
of  husbandry. 
This  was  the  outcome,  the  victorious  outcome  of  the 


174        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

conflict  between  the  Roman  spirit  and  the  ideals  and 
demoralizations  which  assailed  it.  We  speak  too  in- 
discriminately of  Rome's  decline  and  fall.  Through 
all  assaults  of  those  whom  she  conquered  and  of  those 
who  conquered  her,  the  gods  of  things  as  they  are 
maintained  themselves  against  both  the  gods  of  things 
as  they  ought  ideally  to  be  and  the  gods  of  things  as 
riotous  desires  would  have  them  be.  Laws,  rights, 
obligations,  order,  indispensable  to  all  human  values, 
in  constructions  as  vast  as  the  united  realms  of  human 
endeavor,  must  be  attributed  to  the  Roman  part  of 
our  civilization.  Whatever  structural  elements  we 
have  received  from  Teutonic  or  other  sources  have 
been  builded  in  by  the  Roman  master-builder.  Not 
from  Rome  indeed  is  the  consciousness  of  law  as 
absolute  sanctity  affirming  the  inviolability  of  justice 
on  the  earth.  These  Greek  and  Hebrew  conceptions 
the  Roman  genius  has  accepted  in  part  and  utihzed, 
but  the  impulse  of  its  task  was  not  of  them.  The 
Roman  genius  tends  rather  to  balancings  and  com- 
promises, in  which  the  higher  worths  may  be  com- 
promised. Yet  the  Roman  quahty  has  built  the 
strong  house  for  civiHzation  to  dwell  in,  out  of  mate- 
rials dug  from  the  earth,  as  ensuring  more  substantial 
results  than  to  watch  for  the  radiant  temple  of  human- 
ity to  descend  out  of  Heaven.    The  ordering  of  things 


THE  ARYAN   CIVILIZATION  175 

by  ideal  principles  and  aims  is  Hellenic;  the  ordering 
of  things  by  their  own  practicabilities  of  mutual  ad- 
justment is  Roman.  In  every  phase  of  the  life  of 
mankind,  including  plastic  art  and  music,  to  which 
Roman  technicalities  are  indispensable,  and  in  every 
individual  life,  the  j&ner  things  are  preserved  only  as 
those  patient  drudgeries  establish  them,  and  appoint 
to  every  right  and  value  scrupulously  computed  metes 
and  bounds,  rules  and  prescriptions  and  restrictive 
constitutions,  which  only  knaves  and  madmen  seek 
to  break  through. 

The  Aryan  genius  of  world-conquest  is  strangely 
qualified  when  Celt  and  Goth  are  lifted  to  participa- 
tion in  it.  The  Celt  contributes  mystery.  The  world 
which  the  human  spirit  is  to  appropriate  and  complete 
is  extended  over  the  fields  of  dream. 

The  Greek  had  his  dreams,  but  with  a  difference. 
That  intense  Hellenist,  John  Keats,  describes  the  most 
exquisite  of  the  Greek  myths  as  "dream  within  dream." 
It  is  dream  when  celestial  beauty,  adored  as  aloof  and 
passionless,  descends  to  the  longings  of  the  shepherd 
sleeping  in  a  vale  of  Latmos.  It  is  dream  when  at  the 
opening  of  "Lamia"  the  invisible  loveliness  of  the 
earth  becomes  palpable  by  a  secret  spell,  while  these 
consummations  are  of  moonlight  and  "green  recessed 
woods."     But  the  Greek's  languorous  hauntings  by 


176        THE  CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

that  which  is  too  sweet  for  being  take  the  elements  of 
dream  from  clear  perceptions  of  the  actual  and  form 
them  by  powers  of  rational  thought.  Different  is  the 
secular  dream-world  of  the  Celt,  not  to  speak  now  of 
his  spiritual  mysticism.    It  is  a  world  of 

"Magic  casements,  opening  on  the  foam 
Of  perilous  seas,  in  faery  lands  forlorn." 

Here  is  the  Celtic  dream-world  in  its  irrationality, 
dread,  infested  by  alien  powers,  where  the  human 
spirit,  entranced  by  lures  exquisite  and  terrible, 
wanders  defenceless  and  amazed.  Just  beyond  such 
verse  open  spheres  of  music,  where  thought  is  drowned 
in  floods  of  objectless  longing  and  recoil;  music  in- 
choate, until  a  deeper  power  of  the  human  soul  asserts 
mastery  over  it,  with  Hellenic  clearness  and  Roman 
attainment  of  technical  skill;  a  power  which  is  most 
wonderful  in  this,  that  it  still  keeps  that  dream-world 
into  which  the  Greek  never  entered. 

The  mastery  of  music  reveals  the  Gothic  genius. 
The  Goth  is  Iranian  and  Celt:  a  visionary  Iranian,  a 
Celt  determined  to  realize  his  dreams,  indomitably 
pursuant  of  the  ideal.  Celtic-Gothic  is  Romanticism, 
which  is  not  the  superficial  fashion  of  an  eccentric 
epoch,  but  a  force  pervasive  of  Occidental  civilization 
from  the  moment  when  Gothic  and  Celtic  peoples 


THE  ARYAN  CIVILIZATION  177 

participated  and  contributed.  It  is  what  Goethe 
perceived:  Faust  who  seeks  the  embraces  of  Helena; 
and  from  that  union  springs  the  Aryan  world's 
glorious  new  deity,  doomed  so  soon  to  die;  for,  as 
Goethe  saw,  one  sufficient  to  be  the  eternal  life  of  civ- 
ilization must  descend  from  other  realms. 

The  passion  of  the  Romantic  spirit  is  to  break 
through  not  only  Roman  institutionalism,  but  also 
the  limits  which  the  Hellene  accepted  for  his  life  free, 
rich,  beautiful,  of  well-ordered,  self-restrained  buoy- 
ancy of  soul.  The  conflict  between  Romanticist  and 
Classicist  takes  innumerable  forms.  This  impulse 
needs  Hellenic  and  Roman  control  beyond  Hellenic 
limitations.  Else  it  becomes  monstrous,  insolent, 
insane,  and  bathetic.  But  it  is  Hellenism  grown  con- 
fident of  indwelling  power  to  appropriate  and  com- 
plete all  things  for  the  ends  of  the  spirit,  to  work  out 
the  world,  in  every  possibility  of  its  unfolding,  to  that 
which  God  would  have  it  become.  For  it  is  religion 
of  the  divine  alliance  and  of  human  devotion  to  the 
divine  purposes. 

Essentially  religious,  but  not  Semitically  religious, 
with  increasing  consciousness  of  the  magnitude  of  its 
task,  this  spirit  opens  itself  to  divine  powers  of  world- 
conquest.  In  the  name  and  by  the  power  of  God,  it 
traverses  the  depths  of  the  earth,  bridles  the  tides  of 


1 78        THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

sea  and  ether,  elevates  human  conditions  to  their 
perfecting.  Art  is  its  interpreter,  essaying  to  pene- 
trate form  with  spirit;  its  prophet,  to  declare  that  the 
universe  shall  be  spirit's  incarnation.  For  this  is  no 
temporal  and  partial  task,  since  it  has  been  under- 
taken in  alliance  with  the  Infinite.  The  world  has 
disclosed  before  us  illimitableness,  but  the  soul  flings 
back  into  their  imperious  faces  the  challenge  of  the 
stars,  conscious  that  the  soul  is  more  masterful  than 
they,  and  that  even  they,  in  God's  time  enough,  shall 
be  given  into  its  hand.  To  translate  into  pedestrian 
prose  the  beat  of  Victor  Hugo's  pinions  up  to  the  sum- 
mits of  things,  thus  defied:  "If  ye  are  mystery,  I  am 
mind.  Ye  know  that  the  soul  is  strong  and  fears 
nothing  when  God's  breath  bears  it  on.  Ye  know 
that  I  will  go  even  to  the  blue  pilasters,  and  that  my 
tread  does  not  tremble  on  the  ladder  that  mounts  to  the 
stars."  The  Aryan  has  indeed  learned  from  the  Semite 
thus  much  of  the  greatness  of  the  soul,  but  this  soul- 
task  is  not  Semitic,  but  Aryan.  Then  with  face 
radiant  of  the  infinite  task  the  Aryan  spirit  turns  in 
exultant  sovereignty  to  the  lowhest  detail  of  this 
universal  world-appropriation  and  world-completion, 
singing  at  its  bench  while  it  shapes  each  day's  portion 
of  the  glory  and  praise  of  the  Most  High. 

The  leadership  of  our  civilization  has  not  become 


THE  ARYAN   CIVILIZATION  179 

any  less  Hellenic  for  these  reinforcements  and  others. 
The  principle  of  the  Aryan  civilization  was  possessed 
by  the  Greek,  and  it  is  his  genius  which  imparts  it. 
He  has  taught  these  new  forces  their  own  nature.  Our 
culture  is  more  Hellenic  now  than  at  the  Renaissance, 
because  it  is  now  less  a  copying,  more  an  expansion 
and  assimilation.  Our  civilization  and  Christianity 
are  more  clearly  evident  as  the  fundamental  division 
in  modern  life,  these  historic  unfoldings  emphasizing 
the  separateness  of  Jesus  from  Aryan  civilization. 

This  separateness  is  encountered  at  the  very  out- 
skirts of  Jesus'  thought  and  work.  To  Him  the  world, 
under  Satan's  dominion,  is  not  to  be  appropriated  and 
completed;  its  catastrophic  destruction  is  at  hand. 
Between  God's  kingdom  and  Satan's  kingdom  there 
is  absolute  antagonism,  and  beside  these  two  king- 
doms there  is  no  other.  The  world  is  not  part  Satan's 
and  part  God's,  that  human  powers  may  ally  them- 
selves with  the  nobler  protagonist  to  fight  out  its 
redemption.  The  catastrophic  issue  is  by  God's  un- 
assisted power.  Persian  indeed  in  part  is  the  historic 
origin  of  such  conceptions,  but  altogether  Semitic  is 
their  meaning  to  Jesus.  These  convictions  of  His  are 
neither  to  be  over-emphasized  nor  under-stated.  It  is 
equally  unhistorical  to  ascribe  to  Him  all  the  escha- 
tology  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  and  to  fail  to  recognize 


i8o        THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

that  it  all  had  a  vital  relation  to  His  announcements. 
It  is  equally  irrational  to  modernize  these  thoughts  and 
to  ignore  the  universal  within  them.  But  the  neces- 
sary emphasis  is  this,  that  such  convictions  are  in  no 
wise  related  to  the  Aryan  genius.  They  are  expressive 
of  the  transcendent  world-conquest.  Through  them 
the  way  may  be  found  to  the  innermost  Semitic 
spirituality,  but  not  to  Aryan  principles.  They  must 
not  be  disregarded  in  favor  of  a  Christianity  Hellen- 
ically  conceived. 

Evidently  our  Christian  apologetic  misconceives 
both  Christianity  and  the  Aryan  civilization  when  it 
attempts  to  derive  the  progress  of  the  latter  from  the 
excellence  of  the  former.  This  is  the  familiar  paean  of 
the  light  breaking  upon  the  decadent  darkness  of  the 
Roman  Empire.  The  fall  of  the  Empire  under  Chris- 
tianity is  left  to  a  less  exalted  strain.  Such  discords 
are  drowned  in  the  songs  of  the  morning  stars  as  they 
lead  new  peoples  into  the  blessings  of  Christianity. 
Recurrent  themes  of  the  symphony  are  the  enfran- 
chisement of  woman,  sometimes  from  the  restraints 
essential  to  the  glory  of  womanhood,  the  passing  of 
one  or  two  of  the  forms  of  industrial  slavery,  the 
struggles  for  political  liberty,  the  improvement  of  a 
moral  sense  which  forces  some  abominations  to  be 
practised  less  openly   than  classic  taste  permitted; 


THE  ARYAN   CIVILIZATION  i8i 

above  all,  the  new  conception  of  humanity  as  the 
equality  and  brotherhood  of  the  children  of  God,  an 
ideal  insufficiently  expressed  in  present  social  condi- 
tions, frenetic  militarisms,  or  responsibilities  incurred 
with  suspicious  readiness  by  Christian  nations  in  the 
alleged  behalf  of  their  pagan  and  Mohammedan  sisters. 
This  apology  extols  the  beneficent  work  of  the  church 
in  the  Middle  Ages,  as  among  the  Albigenses,  sets 
Puritanism  to  its  music  somewhat  nasalized;  and  is 
carried  away  by  its  enthusiasms  to  celebrate  all  im- 
provements of  human  conditions,  elevations  of  moral 
sense,  and  enlargements  of  life  in  the  world,  as  Gesta 
Christi,  though  we  see  not  yet  all  things  put  under 
Him. 

That  Christianity  has  exercised  a  large  influence 
upon  the  progress  of  civilization  is  generally  conceded, 
and  also  that  this  influence  has  been  on  the  whole 
more  beneficial  than  mischievous.  Yet  the  alleged 
causal  connection  is  difficult  to  find  within  the  scope 
of  this  current  apologetic,  since  the  supposed  cause 
and  effect  are  not  of  the  same  genus.  Our  civilization 
contains  mighty  moral  and  spiritual  forces  of  its 
own,  which  have  the  right  to  claim  for  their  develop- 
ments much  that  Christianity  claims.  Where  the 
two  seem  to  work  together  to  good  results  it  is  im- 
possible to  distinguish  how  much  is  due  to  our  culture, 


i82         THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

how  much  to  our  religion,  and  difficult  to  prove  in 
most  concrete  instances  that  the  part  of  the  latter 
is  not  negligible.  Or  the  influence  of  Christianity 
may  be  simply  a  stimulus  to  our  other  inheritance, 
to  awake  Aryan  potencies.  And  much  of  the  in- 
fluence of  Christianity,  as  this  argument  traces  its 
unfoldings,  has  been  for  evil,  frequently  for  mon- 
strous evil.  It  is  a  question  whether  this  apologetic, 
as  traditionally  argued,  can  establish  its  claim  beyond 
controversy  at  any  point.  The  classic  age  was  better 
than  this  glorification  of  Christianity  represents  it, 
and  the  course  of  the  Christian  era  worse.  Economic 
conditions  seem  to  have  been  the  direct  cause  of  the 
fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  and  for  these  and  other 
evils  Christianity  prescribed  no  remedy.  The  Church 
that  educated  the  nations  darkened  mind  and  heart, 
till  Hellenism's  new  dawn,  which  the  church  largely 
obscured.  From  the  shackles  of  those  so  incomplete 
emancipators,  Lutheranism  and  Calvinism,  the  human 
spirit  is  struggling  to  get  free.  The  cross  of  mankind's 
redemption  has  been  the  fruitful  occasion  of  repressive 
ecclesiasticisms  and  of  atrocities  enormous,  unthink- 
able. Swinburne's  Hues,  "Before  a  Crucifix,"  do  not 
overstate  the  facts.  If  it  is  urged  that  such  evils 
are  not  due  to  Christianity,  but  to  its  perversions,  this 
argument  is  compelled  to  reckon  the  perversion  in 


THE   ARYAN   CIVILIZATION  183 

the  actual  historic  influence:  malign  outworkings  of 
culture  are  also  due  to  perversions  of  culture.  Favor- 
able comparisons  of  Christian  with  non-Christian  lands 
are  also  comparisons  of  lands  of  the  Hellenic  culture 
with  lands  barbarous,  or  of  another  type  of  civiliza- 
tion. It  would  be  an  academic  futility  to  argue  that 
our  Occidental  progress  might  have  been  as  great 
without  the  influence  of  Christianity.  Christianity 
has  been  present.  It  would  be  as  academically  futile 
to  maintain  that  there  could  not  have  been  greater 
progress  in  certain  directions  without  Christianity. 
Who  knows  what  other  beneficent  secular  powers 
have  been  precluded  by  the  institutions  and  forces 
which  this  argument  conceives  as  representing  our 
religion?  There  are  few  nobler  tasks  than  to  emanci- 
pate culture  from  the  Hmitations  and  repressions 
which  bear  the  name  Christian,  and  to  permit  the  de- 
velopment of  civihzation's  own  untrammeled  powers. 
The  argument  is  reconstructed  when  we  consider 
the  different  natures  of  our  two  inheritances,  and  that 
Jesus  and  the  religion  that  keeps  His  spirit  are  not 
for  man's  appropriation  of  the  world,  but  for  man's 
transcendence  of  the  world.  Then  the  alleged  direct 
causal  connections  between  Him  and  the  accomplish- 
ments of  our  civilization  fall  away.  These  potencies 
are  relieved  of  an  interference  which  He  never  as- 


1 84        THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

serted;  and  He  is  vindicated  from  a  purpose  which 
He  never  intended.  He,  in  His  separateness  from  the 
Aryan  civilization,  is  not  the  servant  of  these  things. 
The  distinction  reveals  the  actual  and  historic 
influence  of  Jesus  and  His  religion  upon  the  Aryan 
culture.  The  tasks  of  our  civilization  have  been 
confronted  with  the  Semitic  principle  and  are  unable 
to  repudiate  it.  The  spirit  that  attempts  the  Aryan 
conquest  of  the  world  has  been  taught  that  for  this 
conquest  it  must  stand  above  the  world.  The  soul 
is  transcendent  of  that  which  it  would  appropriate 
and  complete.  This  becomes  more  evident  with  the 
modern  enlargings  of  the  task,  but  is  always  essential 
to  the  thorough  undertaking  of  the  task.  To  appro- 
priate and  complete,  one  must  transcend.  But  this 
is  to  find  the  aim  of  the  task  in  soul  that  transcends. 
The  radical  division  in  modern  life  becomes  its  funda- 
mental perplexity  and  strife :  the  Aryan  asks  the  indis- 
pensable alliance  of  the  Semitic  spirit,  to  appropriate 
the  world;  but  the  Semitic  spirit  repudiates  the  Aryan 
purpose,  denies  the  Aryan  principle. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE   TASK   OF   CIVILIZATION 

Life  is  task  in  the  civilization  in  which  one  finds 
oneself.  It  is  task  by  the  principle  and  aim  of  the 
civilization  of  which  we  are.  No  man  has  the  right 
even  to  consider  the  exchange  of  this  obligation  for 
another.  Against  whatever  argument  or  claim,  we 
must  be  true  to  the  immediate  loyalty.  Whether 
success  or  failure  awaits  us,  we  cannot  do  otherwise 
than  give  ourselves  to  the  work  next  our  hand.  To 
do  that  with  enduring  determination  is  success  in  our 
own  souls  at  least,  though  nothing  else  comes  of  it. 
The  service  of  the  present  age  moves  in  a  large  un- 
selfishness. For  into  the  task  of  this  phase  of  our 
civilization  enters  the  glorifying,  energizing  social 
passion,  with  the  sublime  hope,  that  men  personally 
self-attained  in  their  relations  with  one  another,  in 
their  interpenetrations  of  one  another,  with  reorgan- 
ized conditions  of  life,  may  effect  in  greater  measure 
than  ever  before  humanity's  appropriative  and  com- 
pletive conquest  of  the  world. 

The  social  passion  has  summoned  the  Christian 

i8s 


1 86         THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

consciousness  to  the  task  of  civilization  thus  magnani- 
mously conceived.  That  which  seems  to  be  the 
dominant  Christian  ambition  of  our  time  is  to  incar- 
nate Jesus'  righteousness,  wisdom,  beauty  and  love, 
in  organizations  of  law,  science,  art  and  social  relations, 
making  the  world  the  body  of  Jesus'  soul.  The 
new  social  consciousness  hailed  Him  social  Saviour. 
His  Church  flung  herself  into  social  ministries.  His 
prophets  flamed  with  the  social  evangel.  The  tired 
eyes  of  the  nations  looked  up  to  see  their  redemption 
drawing  nigh.  Verily  Jesus  is  the  social  man.  He  is 
unquenchable  fury  against  every  wrong  of  man  to 
man,  in  His  conception  of  manhood.  He  is  the  in- 
carnate democracy  of  all  men's  equal  and  supreme 
right.  He  is  the  power  to  unify  all  men,  and  to  Him 
a  man  does  not  exist  as  a  man  if  he  rejects  mankind's 
supreme  unity.  It  is  indeed  the  soul  of  humanity 
that  He  would  save, — the  only  soul  in  any  man  which 
He  thinks  worth  saving;  but  His  salvation  is  all  the 
more  evidently  the  salvation  of  just  the  soul.  The 
fundamental  division  of  modern  life  is  most  evident 
in  the  distinction  of  His  social  passion  from  ours. 

This  social  difference  is  felt  increasingly.  When 
generally  recognized,  the  final  rupture  will  impend 
between  Christianity  and  our  civilization.  Whatever 
Jesus'  credentials,  whatever  His  nature,  whatever  the 


THE  TASK  OF   CIVILIZATION  187 

glory  and  blessedness  to  which  He  invites,  whatever 
the  penalty  for  rejecting  Him,  our  work  comes  first, 
and  He  is  our  Christ  only  as  he  is  Master  of  the  work. 
It  is  not  that  the  rash  hope  of  constructing  from  the 
teaching  of  Jesus  a  new  regime,  collectivistic  or  in- 
dividuaHstic,  proves  as  superficial  as  unintelligent: 
we  look  to  Him,  not  for  schemes  and  external  organi- 
zations, but  for  the  formative  principle  and  energy 
of  them.  It  is  not  that  Jesus'  expectation  of  the  im- 
mediate destruction  and  reconstruction  of  all  things 
hid  from  Him  the  social  development  of  the  ages  that 
bear  His  name;  the  catastrophe  which  He  looked  for 
might  be  for  the  estabhshment  of  that  kingdom  of 
humanity  for  which  we  long.  But  the  expectation 
which  inspired  Jesus  expressed  another  hope  than 
ours.  His  teaching  and  ministry  were  not  directed 
to  the  object  of  our  endeavors. 

The  solution  is  in  Jesus.  It  is  in  the  heart  of  our 
culture  responding  to  Him.  We  have  not  known 
what  spirit  we  are  of.  Our  civilization's  final  aim, 
unconsciously  because  so  deeply  implicit,  is  not  the 
appropriation  of  the  world  but  its  transcendence. 

This  is  not  a  principle  of  a  different  order,  for  civil- 
ization to  give  place  to,  but  the  principle  of  civiliza- 
tion itself,  Aryan  or  any  other,  but  most  clearly  of  the 
civilization  most  advanced.    It  is  not  something  else, 


1 88        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

for  civilization  to  work  up  to  and  then  efface  itself, 
but  was  present  when  the  higher  interests  first  emerged 
from  barbarism;  a  power  latent  far  below  its  earliest 
cultural  manifestations.  It  is  not  confined  to  the 
higher  elements  of  culture,  but  pervades  it  all.  Every 
appropriation  and  completion  of  the  world,  wrought 
by  the  soul  that  refuses  to  be  conquered  by  the  world, 
is  intrinsically  the  transcendence  of  the  world  by  the 
human  soul.  In  so  far  as  tasks  separate  themselves 
from  this  their  essential  aim,  they  deny  themselves 
and  lose  themselves.  Jesus,  who  is  realization  and 
central  impartive  power  of  spiritual  humanity,  is 
revealer,  director,  and  inexhaustible  energy  of  all 
that  men  have  to  do. 

To  learn  that  this  is  the  implicit  task  of  civilization, 
we  must  turn  where  the  conquest  of  the  world  begins 
and  is  achieved,  to  the  depths  of  the  toiling  soul. 

Here  we  find  the  fundamental  division  in  the  life 
of  our  time.  The  determination  to  conquer  the  world 
by  appropriating  it,  and  the  aspiration  to  conquer 
the  world  by  transcending  it,  constitute  the  final 
strife  in  every  man  and  the  life  of  humanity.  Be- 
neath the  distinction  of  conquering  the  world  and  of 
being  conquered  by  the  world,  there  opens  the  dis- 
tinction which  the  Semitic  Jesus  saw  most  clearly, 
distinction  in  the  world-conquest  by  the  soul.    That 


THE   TASK  OF   CIVILIZATION  189 

which  has  seemed  to  the  Aryan  the  consummate 
task,  the  final  victory,  humanity's  self-attainment 
and  self-perfecting,  has  brought  us  only  to  the  en- 
trance of  the  spiritual  universe;  our  most  arduous 
fields  are  still  before  us.  If  we  choose  to  stay  in  this 
preliminary  of  manhood  when  the  further  advance 
is  revealed  to  us,  we  return  in  principle  to  the  inferior 
stage.  Our  world-conquest  by  world-appropriation 
is  then  the  world's  victory  over  us,  for  then  we  re- 
pudiate the  power  which  alone  can  conquer  the  world. 
We  submit  ourselves  to  things  if  we  fail  to  recognize 
the  revelation  of  what  we  are. 

The  Aryan  genius  has  received  many  intimations 
of  this  achievement  which  lies  beyond  its  clear  vision, 
has  felt  unappeasable  dissatisfactions,  not  only  with 
its  accomplishments,  but  also  with  its  hopes  and 
aspirations.  It  has  not  been  able  to  evade  the  sus- 
picion, that  the  problem  of  life  is  not  solved  even  when 
the  vision  seemed  most  alluring  of  a  world  subdued 
to  the  human  soul  and  of  a  soul  victoriously  appropri- 
ating and  completing  the  world.  But  in  the  Semite 
these  premonitions  have  become  potencies.  It  is 
he  who  has  announced  that  even  the  world-conquering 
manhood  must  die,  and  that  there  must  come  to  Hfe 
a  manhood  of  radically  different  aims  and  energies; 
a   new  spiritual   Hfe   in  a  new-created   universe   of 


I90        THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

spiritual  values;  a  life  that  seeks  no  flight  from  the 
world,  but  whose  conflict  with  the  world  is  to  win 
spirit's  transcendence  of  the  world. 

Two  words  which  we  have  used  frequently  now 
deepen  their  meanings.  The  world  has  been  regarded 
by  us  as  that  which  is  in  opposition  to  the  human 
soul,  and  this  practical  definition,  suited  to  action, 
we  shall  still  find  sufficient  for  the  practical  purposes 
which  alone  occupy  us;  but  the  world  as  in  opposition 
to  the  soul  now  includes  all  that  which  opposes  the 
soul  in  its  world-transcending  purpose.  And  the 
spirit,  expressive  of  that  which  is  soul's  fundamental 
and  universal,  now  means  to  us  that  which  asserts 
and  realizes  itself  in  the  world-transcending  conflict. 
The  world  which  towered  so  vast  before  us,  now  lives 
mightily  within  us,  and  spirit  finds  itself  engaged  in 
the  most  interior  strife,  and  here  it  has  to  realize  itself 
from  the  faintest  beginnings  of  itself. 

It  is  nothing  less  than  this  spiritual  manhood  which 
is  awakened  in  us  even  from  the  earliest  sense  im- 
pressions. It  is  this  power,  however  unconscious  of  its 
supreme  task,  which  unifies  them  into  a  world-order, 
organizes  them  that  it  may  transcend  them,  seeking 
ever  its  own  quaHty,  as  not  from  them  derived.  Even 
here  it  is  striving  for  norms  and  powers  of  action 
which,  surmounting  the  utilities  of  increasing  pleasure 


THE  TASK  OF   CIVILIZATION  191 

and  decreasing  pain  of  flesh  and  sense,  press  on  to 
inviolable  sanctities  in  attainments  of  its  own  being. 
In  spirit's  very  construction  of  the  world  it  reaches 
beyond  its  constructions  of  sense  impressions,  however 
complex  or  abstract,  into  universal  thought  wherein 
alone  these  things  are  true.  In  forming  a  world  of 
beauty  whose  delight  is  in  the  accordances  of  things, 
it  seeks  the  vital  intensity  and  harmony  of  its  own 
unfoldings.  In  its  rudimentary  formations  of  its 
world,  the  powers  of  this  spiritual  Hfe  expand  in 
clarifying  consciousness  of  the  spiritual  infinite,  beset 
with  whatever  antinomies;  they  penetrate  the  indwell- 
ing hfe  of  the  eternal.  From  its  earliest  contacts  with 
the  elements  of  its  world,  its  task  is  the  transcendence 
of  the  world. 

The  relation  of  resistant  world  to  germinant  spirit 
becomes  closer  in  these  deepened  meanings  of  each. 
The  world  is  not  a  reaUstic  conception  for  ideaHsm 
to  contemn.  It  is  not  apart  from  us,  nor  an  intrusion 
into  us,  but  internal  order  of  thought  and  Hfe.  Its 
final  relation  with  that  which  we  conceive  as  somehow, 
provisionally  without,  it  does  not  belong  to  our  plan 
to  amphfy,  except  that  nothing  must  be  permitted 
to  conceal  from  us  the  world's  essential  inwardness. 
When  one  thinks  of  it  as  extending  beyond  the  in- 
dividual self,  the  world  is  an  inner  life  in  humanity, 


192        THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

and  may  well  be  within  all  rational  being.  Thus  the 
contest  between  world  and  spirit  is  the  very  closest, 
as  intense  as  confused.  Because  the  world  is  within 
us,  organized  by  spirit  itself  (for  no  conception  of  its 
self-organization  can  make  it  more  than  appearance) 
the  difference  between  that  which  is  thus  wrought 
upon  and  that  which  works  upon  it  is  given  only 
rudimentarily,  to  be  grasped  only  by  the  self-develop- 
ment of  the  shaping  power.  As  spirit  and  world  are 
inwardly  together,  this  relation  discloses  that  in 
ultimate  nature  they  are  one:  "The  only  possible 
antithesis  of  spirit  is  itself  spiritual."  They  are  to  be 
clarified  into  one  by  the  reahty  which  spirit  is,  mighty 
to  subdue  all  things  unto  itself,  affirming  its  world- 
transcending  task,  its  world-destroying  task,  of  trans- 
forming all  that  is  beneath  itself  into  its  own  nature, 
that  as  opposing  world  the  other  may  cease  to  be. 
In  spirit's  interblendings  with  the  world  it  gains  itself 
from  the  world  and  against  the  world.  Perplexed, 
distracted,  it  asserts  itself  and  its  universaHty,  the 
infinite  spirit  witnessing  with  our  spirit,  that  we  are 
one  with  that  One  in  inahenable  nature  and  final  goal. 
This  indissoluble  relation  between  the  world  and 
the  spirit  brings  to  thought  contradictions  seemingly 
irreconcilable,  to  hfe  conflicts  incessant.  Spirit's 
ethical  nature  forbids  it  to  leave  the  problem  un- 


THE  TASK  OF   CIVILIZATION  193 

solved,  the  strife  unfought.  Therefore  it  looks  its 
fellow  in  the  face,  resolute  indeed  to  compel  all  that 
may  be  transmuted  into  the  spiritual,  yet  scorning 
any  compromise  of  its  own  quahty,  any  restriction 
of  its  own  universality,  and  forcing  its  way  through 
encounters  as  of  wrestlers  interlocked,  hot  breath  of 
each  in  the  other's  face.  Thus  are  the  spirit's  powers 
developed,  its  kingdom  won. 

For  the  spirit  is  real  as  realizing  itself.  It  is  our 
own  because  we  must  fight  for  it.  Innermost  self, 
because  in  fundamental  mysteries  we  must  search  for 
it.  Closest  because  far  away,  hearth-fire  beyond  the 
spaces:  there  our  being  centers.  With  its  confusions 
to  be  made  radiance,  with  its  self-constraints  in  which 
alone  is  liberty,  with  toil  and  pain  of  the  insatiable 
war  against  the  world,  and  the  secret  of  peace  dawning 
in  the  strife, — in  comparison  with  this  which  we  choose 
to  be  nature  and  aim  of  us,  nought  is,  save  as  spirit 
may  gain  itself  thereby. 

For  the  spirit's  own  sake,  the  world  thus  inwardly 
understood  must  be  given  the  freest  scope  in  its  own 
range,  must  be  developed  to  the  utmost  of  its  poten- 
cies. So  in  every  man,  so  in  the  life  of  humanity. 
For  in  conflict  with  the  world  spirit  realizes  itself,  and 
there  must  be  conflict  with  the  world  which  develops 
itself  to  its  completeness,  in  order  that  militant  spirit 


194         THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

may  reach  its  own  full  stature.  Therefore  to  each  task 
in  the  world  is  accorded  its  own  aim,  impulse,  and  law. 
And  labors  organize  themselves  by  the  aims,  impulses 
and  laws  of  these  provisional  wholes.  Only  in  such 
emancipation  can  the  tasks  of  a  man  or  a  civilization 
gain  the  coherence  and  significance  which  render  them 
usable  by  the  transcendent  purpose.  Spirit  demands 
for  its  own  sake  the  untrammeled  freedom  of  the 
world's  tasks.  It  develops  itself  by  confronting  the 
actual  world-order  as  strict  scientific  method  learns  it, 
and  as  that  order's  own  impulses  unfold  it.  The 
spiritual  is  itself  task,  not  completeness  which  can 
command  things  to  adjust  themselves  to  its  own 
finished  scheme.  It  has  no  formula  for  their  procedures 
or  conclusions.  All  must  be  free,  elastic,  adventurous, 
in  that  order  in  which  and  from  which  and  against 
which  spirit  realizes  itself.  Yet  in  no  realm  can  it  be 
content  with  any  ultimate  purpose  but  its  own.  It 
asserts  that  conditions  of  life  can  have  no  significance 
except  for  the  life  to  which  they  minister,  and  that 
life  has  no  significance  except  in  values  and  ends  which, 
because  values  and  ends,  are  of  the  spiritual.  It  can- 
not restrict  the  other  without  limiting  itself,  a  state- 
ment historically  demonstrated.  Its  assertion  of  it- 
self is  challenge  and  inspiration  for  every  power  of 
civilization,  every  beauty  and  glory  of  the  world,  to 


THE  TASK  OF  CIVILIZATION  195 

evolve  itself.  Every  spiritual  idea,  ferment,  person- 
ality, has  been  a  quickener  of  culture,  and  that  which 
spirit  evokes  it  must  not  flee  from  nor  leave  uncon- 
quered. 

An  undisciplined  optimism  may  conceive  spirit's 
affirmation  of  itself  under  the  similitude  of  the  sun-god 
who  smites  the  clouds  of  night  into  splendors  of  his 
rising.  But  no  divinities  of  light  are  we.  We  con- 
front our  task  bewildered,  darkened,  sore-oppressed 
with  weaknesses  and  miseries  and  sins. 

Therefore  we  turn  away  from  every  spirituality 
that  is  overweening,  self-confident.  We  reject  as  in- 
sufficient for  our  labors  that  ideahsm  so  called,  which 
assumes  the  self-realization  of  spirit  as  attained  in  its 
bare  self-assertion,  and  proceeds  with  an  undisturbed 
construction  of  the  spiritual  universe.  All  is  spirit, 
do  we  say?  Nothing  is  spiritual  for  us  until  we  have 
made  it  so.  And  what  thought,  what  vital  energy  have 
we  sufficient  for  the  task ! 

Therefore  we  repudiate  any  spirituality  that  is  not 
of  a  lowly  and  contrite  heart.  We  pronounce  insuffi- 
cient every  energy  which  is  not  redemptive,  both  of 
the  world  to  be  overcome,  and  first  of  all  redemptive 
of  our  own  spiritual  being,  which  must  deny  itself 
in  every  worth  and  claim  in  order  to  be  of  worth  and 
power.     Therefore  our  leaders  cannot  be  even  the 


196         THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

greatest  of  the  Hellenes  and  their  pupils  of  modern 
times,  who  are  ignorant  of  the  evangel  that  for  our 
world-conquest  we  must  first  in  our  inmost  spiritual 
life  die  and  rise  again.  Those  great  souls  are  still  in- 
volved in  the  world,  none  the  less  though  they  stand 
on  its  radiant  heights,  and  their  leadership  is  not 
beyond  that  genius  of  world-appropriation  and 
world-completion,  by  which  the  world  is  not  over- 
come. 

Yet  the  spirit  within  us,  confronting  its  warfare  in 
the  conscious  weakness  which  alone  is  receptive  of 
the  sufficient  strength,  and  in  the  fear  which  alone  is 
capable  of  indomitable  courage  to  the  last,  finds  it- 
self in  a  universal  human  alliance.  The  self-sufhcient 
spirituahty  declaims  loftily  to  one's  fellowmen  who, 
from  whatever  fault  or  virtue,  deny  the  spiritual,  or 
are  unable  to  afhrm  it:  "Whether  you  have  a  soul  or 
not,  I  have."  Arrogance  toward  men  is  never  hu- 
mility toward  God.  And  while  every  latent  force  in 
humanity  is  requisite,  the  battle  becomes  the  dubious 
perquisite  of  the  few,  overbold.  This  assumed  spirit- 
uality denies  the  spirituality  essential,  however  latent, 
in  man  as  man,  in  every  man  as  belonging  to  human- 
ity, and  in  this  denial  denies  spirit  in  its  deepest 
meaning.  It  becomes  an  individual  self-sufficiency 
contrary  to  spirit's  universal  and  therefore  sacrificial 


THE  TASK  OF   CIVILIZATION  197 

nature.  In  this  inhuman  pride  stood  the  pneumatic 
Gnostic,  separating  himself  from  psychical  men. 
Here  are  select  companies  of  professors  of  religion, 
parading  along  the  heavenward  way.  Here  are  also 
many  champions  of  the  deeper  thought,  the  finer  feel- 
ing, the  purer  life,  who  are  alienated  from  the  multi- 
tude. Here  are  those  to  whom  affirmation  is  easy, 
oblivious  of  the  possibility  that  in  the  souls  which 
deny  there  may  be  an  affirmation  more  ethical  and 
veracious.  But  the  man  who  recognizes  in  every  man, 
as  in  himself,  the  germ  of  soul,  calls,  not  from  a  height, 
but  eyes  level  with  eyes  most  downcast,  hand  extended 
to  hand  most  soiled:  "Brother-soul,  because  brother- 
man,  by  the  affirmation  which  is  in  our  denials,  by 
our  spark  unquenchable  in  many  floods,  by  the  holi- 
ness persistent  and  inalienable  through  every  pollu- 
tion, fight  in  alliance  with  us  all,  the  battle  of  Him 
who  overcame." 

Therefore  we  lift  up  hands  of  prayer  to  the  Spirit 
almighty,  in  confession  without  a  plea,  in  the  entreaty 
of  utter  helplessness.  Then  the  self-assertion  and  self- 
centering,  which  is  the  deadliest  enemy  of  spiritual 
manhood,  because,  standing  nearest,  it  strikes  at  the 
heart,  finds  the  impenetrable  shield  interposed.  Not 
for  ourselves  do  we  conquer,  but  for  the  Infinite  who 
sent  us,  whose  we  are,  and  in  whom  we  lose  and  find 


198        THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

ourselves,  and  unto  Him  be  the  glory  of  the  vic- 
tory. Then  to  our  weakness  comes  His  strength, 
which  is  perfected  in  our  weakness.  When  we  are 
overwhelmed  with  our  insufficiency  we  assert  the 
transcendent  conquest  of  the  world.  For  such  asser- 
tion is  the  declaration  of  the  Infinite  and  All-holy, 
who  will  have  His  purpose  accompKshed  in  us  and 
through  us,  that  we  may  attain  His  life  eternal. 
Nothing  less  than  this  power  is  in  human  endeavors 
to  achieve  their  self-realization  by  the  transcendent 
world-conquest. 

The  transcendent  answer  is  given  no  less  clearly 
in  the  "Everlasting  No"  to  any  incitement  to  find 
satisfaction  in  the  world,  even  in  the  finest  forms  of 
its  appropriation.  This  negation  goes  deeper  than 
the  resignation  born  of  the  conviction  that  the  world 
refuses  to  serve  us;  it  is  we  who  refuse. 

This  answer  is  given  by  those  whom  humanity 
recognizes  as  its  representatives,  the  witnesses  of 
things  unseen  and  eternal,  of  whom  the  world  was 
not  worthy.  Theirs  is  the  sublime  scorn  of  gaining  the 
whole  world  at  the  cost  of  any  good  which  is  the  soul's 
own.  In  this  self-denying  self-affirmation  the  leaders 
of  mankind  have  laid  down  the  earthly  life,  in  cruci- 
fixion of  themselves  to  the  world,  and  of  the  world  to 
themselves,  having  accomplished  previous  toils  and 


THE  TASK  OF  CIVILIZATION  199 

sufferings  which  were  a  continual  dying  to  the  lower 
self,  while  the  life  they  Hved  in  the  flesh  was  lived  by 
faith  in  the  supreme  devotion. 

But  the  very  quahty  of  such  men  has  been  par- 
taken by  every  man  who  has  given  "the  last  full 
measure  of  devotion."  For  no  sacrifice  is  offered 
merely  that  the  world's  goods  may  fall  to  those  for 
whose  sake  the  sacrifice  is  made.  That  would  be  a 
poor  return  for  the  utmost  that  man  can  do  for  his 
fellowmen.  Then  the  spirit  that  makes  the  sacrifice 
would  stoop  to  an  end  beneath  itself.  For  nothing 
less  than  spirit  is  capable  of  sacrifice,  whether  made  by 
man  or  brute,  since  sacrifice  is  by  its  nature  a  world- 
transcending  act.  However  bhndly,  unconsciously, 
or  with  whatever  mingling  of  lower  impulse,  one 
can  give  oneself  only  to  spiritual  worths  and  ends. 
This  repudiation  of  the  world  is  shared  by  every 
action  which  is  of  the  nature  of  that  utmost  which 
men  can  do  and  are  continually  doing.  Every  offering 
of  love,  every  aspiration  after  holiness,  every  asser- 
tion of  righteousness  for  righteousness'  sake,  manifests 
the  better  man  in  every  man,  the  real  humanity 
which  is  transcendently  spiritual. 

This  repudiation  of  the  world  stultifies  the  world's 
utmost  claim.  That  which  invites  us  to  appropriate 
and  complete  it  is  impermanent. 


200        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

"They  melt  like  mists,  the  sohd  lands; 
Like  clouds  they  shape  themselves  and  go." 

The  constellations  have  the  doom  of  perishableness 
written  in  their  very  radiance.  If  the  earth,  with  the 
systems  in  which  it  has  its  place,  is  the  living  garment 
of  deity,  as  was  declared  by  a  complacency  from  which 
our  generation  is  disillusioned,  it  is  but  a  vesture  to 
be  outworn  and  folded  away.  If  we  assume  the  end- 
less conservation  of  material  elements — an  assump- 
tion which  may  betray  its  provisional  meaning  when 
it  is  analyzed — these  can  be  of  conceivable  import 
only  in  their  organizations  which  change  and  pass. 
If  we  suppose  that  the  spirit's  task  is  to  appropriate 
and  complete  world  after  world  and  universe  after 
universe,  that  work  must  be  either  a  series  of  futilities 
or  for  the  self-realization  of  spirit.  There  is  no  such 
thing  as  "to  stamp  the  perishable  with  imperish- 
able worth."  That  were  an  intolerable  separation 
of  worth  and  being.  We  can  win  eternal  worth  to 
our  own  souls  only  by  the  overcoming  of  the  perish- 
able. 

We  reach  the  heart  of  the  inconceivability  when  we 
reflect  that  spirit,  though  realized  by  us  in  a  relation 
to  the  temporal,  is  itself  not  of  time.  No  analysis 
of  the  conception  time — simplified  of  late  by  noble 
philosophies  of  the  self-attaining  spirit — is  needed  to 


THE  TASK  OF   CIVILIZATION  201 

make  this  clear.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  the  spirit 
distinguishes  the  order  of  its  own  life  from  the  suc- 
cessiveness of  the  world.  What  this  innermost 
order  is,  in  its  complete  emancipation  from  the  other, 
we  know  not  yet  in  its  completeness,  for  it  is  to  be 
attained.  We  know  that  its  origin  and  nature  are 
no  more  from  that  which  we  may  call  the  temporal 
order  of  the  world,  than  from  its  spatial  order.  If 
we  use  the  same  word,  time,  for  both,  it  is  in  a  deepen- 
ing consciousness  of  different  significancies.  That 
difference  is  indicated  in  the  word  eternal.  Most 
welcome  to  this  self-consciousness  of  eternity  are  the 
failures  to  find  anything  beyond  perishableness  in  our 
physical  organization.  Because  spirit  is  not  of  time, 
the  end  and  object  of  its  working  cannot  be  any- 
thing or  all  things  in  the  scope  of  even  indefinite 
time. 

The  growing  consciousness  of  the  irrationality  of 
the  world  as  world,  makes  irrational  the  conception 
of  man's  task  as  the  world's  appropriation  and  com- 
pletion. To  accept  the  smug  old  theodicies  of  "the 
best  of  all  possible  worlds"  has  become  more  intoler- 
able than  to  face  in  their  most  fearful  shapes  the  irre- 
ducible misery  and  aimlessness.  This  disillusion 
is  casting  an  ever  darker  shadow  upon  the  life  of  our 
age.    It  paralyzes  titanic  efforts,  and  evokes  a  deeper 


202        THE  CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

thought,  a  gentler  compassionateness,  and  a  mightier 
redemptive  passion.  The  picture  has  often  been 
painted  too  darkly;  there  is  more  in  creation  than  a 
groaning  and  travailing  in  pain  together  until  now; 
but  a  vast  residuum  remains  unillumined.  As  long 
as  we  judge  the  world,  as  indeed  it  presents  itself 
to  be  judged,  according  to  its  attainments  of  its  ends 
as  world,  the  judgment  must  be:  these  ends  are  not 
attained;  nor  if  they  are  attainable,  have  they  sufficient 
worth  to  justify  themselves,  even  if  we  forget  their 
cost.  For  spirit  to  make  its  world-conquest  the  appro- 
priation of  that  irrationality,  even  when  completed 
by  the  spirit  unto  the  furthest  consummations  and 
organizations  of  the  world's  own  goods,  would  be 
the  repudiation  of  all  that  the  spirit  can  pronounce 
good.  How  the  problem  of  the  world's  inherent 
irrationality  is  to  be  solved,  we  are  not  now  consider- 
ing, except  that  the  only  possible  solution  is  the 
spirit's  own  unfolding  to  the  transcendent  world- 
conquest. 

The  Aryan  genius,  unless  it  surmounts  itself,  fails 
to  include  the  whole  of  life.  For  there  are  elements 
of  Hfe  which  are  not  to  be  completed,  but  to  be  changed 
beyond  any  completion  of  themselves  even  by  that 
which  is  above  them.  The  characteristic  Hellenic 
phase  of  culture,  and  our  inheritance  of  it,  deal  too 


THE  TASK  OF   CIVILIZATION  203 

much  with  favored  persons  and  peoples  and  with 
epochs  of  conscious  advance.  Sorrow,  pain,  and  death 
are  for  the  opposite  of  world-appropriation:  they  are 
not  for  world-completion.  Foul  shapes  of  disease, 
the  physical  aspects  of  mortahty,  the  actual  loss  from 
flesh  and  sense  of  one  very  dear  or  of  a  heart's  desire, 
remain  what  they  are  in  their  sphere.  They  are  in- 
deed to  be  resisted  by  science  and  other  powers  which 
work  within  that  order;  but  such  triumphs  remain 
ever  incomplete.  Though  the  imagination  of  hope 
pictures  a  humanity  at  length  triumphant  over  these 
enemies,  though  an  undaunted  romanticism  ideally 
aspires  to  realms  of  being  in  which  only  the  good 
remains,  yet  the  power  which  is  evoked  for  this 
conquest,  unless  the  hope  is  a  confessed  fantasy,  is 
the  spirit  in  its  transcendent  self-affirmation,  and  the 
significance  of  the  interminable  war  is  that  spirit 
is  to  be  realized  thereby. 

Neither  now  nor  in  the  far  future  have  grief  and 
anguish  and  disillusion  any  possibility  of  justification 
except  when  compelled  to  the  spirit's  furtherance. 
Here  are  indeed  spiritual  transformations  of  the 
lower  order,  but  they  have  not  the  world  for  aim  and 
object.  Victory  unknown  to  the  Aryan  genius  at  its 
height,  yet  involved  in  the  impulse  which  is  in  its 
depth,  is  a  human  soul  standing  above  every  evil  of 


204        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

the  natural  order,  transmuting  every  suffering  and 
loss,  defeat  and  disaster,  into  thought  and  holiness 
and  faith  and  love  and  essential  joy.  So  in  civiliza- 
tion's overwhelmings,  humanity  has  grasped  that 
which  history's  mature  judgment  pronounces  best. 
Only  in  this  insight  have  we  even  the  beginnings  of 
a  theodicy  of  human  life  and  of  the  universe,  a  rudi- 
mentary theodicy  which  need  not  assume  to  explain 
the  shapes  of  that  which  is  to  be  overcome  nor  their 
genesis,  but  holds  the  certainty  that  the  good  is 
supreme  because  of  the  unfolding  power  of  its  over- 
coming. These  dark  realms  the  Semitic  genius  alone 
illumines.  It  enters  them  unafraid,  for  in  them  it  is 
confident  of  supreme  vindication.  These  austere 
initiations  reveal  to  us  that  in  our  joys  no  less,  and 
in  our  evident  accomplishments,  worth  is  the  seeking 
of  the  spirit's  own,  the  denial  of  the  lower  order  in  the 
lower  self,  that  death  of  ourselves  to  the  world  and 
of  the  world  to  ourselves  whereby  the  spirit  comes 
to  realization. 

For  this  dark  part  of  the  actual  is  only  a  part.  To 
suppose  indeed  that  sorrow  is  only  the  foil  to  joy, 
shadows  in  a  picture  to  accentuate  the  lights,  clouds 
to  disintegrate  white  glare  into  myriad-colored  splen- 
dors, dissonances  resolving  into  harmonies  that  so 
please   the  more, — such   reconciliations   may  suffice 


THE  TASK  OF   CIVILIZATION  205 

for  those  who  have  never  faced  life's  ills  with  the 
indignant  sympathy  which  is  growing  in  the  heart  of 
our  age.  But  the  compassionateness  intensely  minis- 
trant  to  the  suffering  within  reach,  and  brooding 
back  and  on  with  the  Buddhas  along  humanity's 
hard  paths,  and  down  to  all  sentient  life,  and  out  into 
a  universe  of  strife  connoting  pain,  must  not  lose  the 
resource  and  wholesomeness  of  vital  joy.  In  this 
realm  may  not  the  Aryan  principle  make  its  home  and 
accomplish  its  service?  Beauty  and  the  rapture  of  it, 
flooding  up  from  nature  into  art  that  consummates 
delight  in  the  world,  all  but  too  intense  to  be  endured, 
these  things  are  for  every  man  who  has  not  shut  them 
out.  There  are  hours  of  life  so  exquisite  that  no 
disaster  or  continuous  pain  can  take  them  from  us. 
Still  they  abide  even  in  torture  and  against  the  face 
of  death.  In  the  inalienable  preciousness  of  them 
men  have  dared  the  terrors  of  the  pit,  confident  that 
all  the  devils  are  too  weak  to  wrest  from  us  a  memory 
of  bliss  that  has  become  the  soul's  very  element. 
No  Semitic  austerity  can  take  from  us  these  essentials 
of  ourselves.  Are  these  the  bounds  which  the  Semitic 
principle  may  not  pass? 

They  may  seem  so  if  we  enjoy  too  little,  not  when 
we  drain  the  brimming  cup  of  joy.  We  need  not  fear 
too  great  happiness,  nor  seek  to  moderate  the  thrill 


2o6        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

of  it;  for  intensities  of  delight  sweep,  like  the  upward 
rush  of  mighty  music,  into  the  spirit's  realm.  Spirit 
alone  can  give  the  crown  of  joy,  being  alone  competent 
to  pronounce  and  create  worth,  and  to  receive  happi- 
ness into  a  permanence  where  it  unfolds  its  uttermost 
potencies.  This  austerely  consummate  test  awaits 
each  seeming  good :  is  the  innermost  Ufe  richer  for  it? 
Is  it  capable  of  being  changed  from  every  form  of 
flesh  and  sense?  Is  it  raised  above  all  their  elabora- 
tions to  be  a  constituent  of  enlarged  spiritual  hfe? 

The  ethical  test  which  every  pleasantness  encounters 
is  nothing  less  than  this:  can  that  which  I  enjoy  be 
transformed  into  spirit  whose  nature  is  holiness? 
Poor  is  the  happiness  of  any  man  who  is  content  to 
meet  amenities  with  a  challenge  less  rigorous.  The 
world  of  beauty  and  joy  exists  altogether  for  the  tran- 
scendent principle,  whose  energy  is  destructive  of  the 
world,  for  when  taken  into  the  spiritual  the  world 
as  world  is  no  more.  Of  this  transcendent  ethic  is 
the  test  of  the  permanence  of  any  joy.  Whatever  is 
not  transformed  into  the  spiritual  fades  with  the 
enfeeblement  by  time  of  the  vividness  of  reproduced 
impressions;  and  this  impermanence  extends  to  the 
organizations  of  them.  There  can  be  abiding  quaHty 
only  by  transmutation  into  spiritual  excellence. 

Nothing  in  the  lower  order  is  too  glorious  to  yield 


THE  TASK  OF   CIVILIZATION  207 

to  this  power  of  destructive  transcendence.  "Though 
we  have  known  Christ  after  the  flesh,  that  knowledge 
no  longer  exists;  so  that  if  any  man  is  in  Christ  he 
is  a  new  creature:  the  old  things  passed;  behold,  the 
new  have  come  into  being."  What  eyes  saw  and  ears 
heard  and  hands  handled  has  been  hfted  into  the 
eternal  life  that  He  is,  and  that  we  are  in  Him.  So  of 
all  the  beauty  and  grace  of  those  dear  to  us,  of  whom 
the  world  was  not  worthy.  That  which  they  gave 
us  remains  ours,  not  by  our  dwelling  upon  faces  that 
we  shall  see  no  more,  voices  whose  music  has  ebbed 
into  gulfs  of  silentness;  but  in  the  inmost  being  of  us 
they  are  whom  we  know  no  more  after  the  flesh;  and 
our  transformed  possession  of  them  leads  us  on  in 
wondering  certainty,  unto  our  "closing  with  them 
soul  in  soul." 

Therefore,  like  the  hero  of  the  Hebrew  myth,  we  are 
wrestlers  till  the  breaking  of  the  day  against  all  that 
is  in  the  world,  against  its  joy  no  less  than  against  its 
sorrow,  and  most  mysteriously  is  God  engaged  in 
that  wrestling,  and  the  victory  is  a  new  name,  as  of 
Israel,  for  a  new  manhood,  which  achieves  to  see  the 
face  of  God.  To  the  happy  and  to  the  unfortunate,  to 
those  whom  the  world  meets  with  its  goods,  and  to 
those  whom  it  confronts  with  its  evils,  and  to  each 
man  in  the  alternations  of  his  fortunes,  there  is  the 


2o8        THE  CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

same  task,  humanity's  one  battle,  to  transform  all 
that  encounters  us  into  that  which  we  are  fundament- 
ally, even  into  that  which  we  have  to  realize.  Every- 
thing in  the  world,  of  whatever  aspect,  summons  us, 
not  to  appropriate  and  complete  it,  but  to  transcend 
and  destroy  it,  by  the  attainment  from  it  of  our 
spiritual  being. 

This  implicit  purpose  of  our  culture  is  evident  when 
we  regard  the  chief  historic  currents,  Iranian,  Roman, 
Celtic,  and  Gothic,  which  unite  in  the  flood  of  the 
Hellenic  civilization.  It  is  not  simply  that  our  cul- 
tural forces  organize  the  lower  order  of  life,  with 
reference  to  which  the  spirit  realizes  itself.  Then 
those  who  are  engaged  in  such  tasks  would  find  them- 
selves only  indirectly  related  to  the  spiritual,  and  the 
greater  part  of  all  men's  lives  would  be  divided  from 
Hfe's  deepest  meaning.  These  cultural  forces  possess 
a  deeper  worth.  Each  of  them,  and  all  in  their  Aryan 
unity,  implicitly  set  for  themselves  the  task  of  the 
transcendent  principle. 

The  Iranian  mihtancy  cannot  stop  short  of  the 
ultimate  opposition,  the  consummate  strife,  and  in 
this  warfare  the  spirit  is  protagonist,  contending  for 
nothing  less  than  ends  universal  and  eternal,  to  realize 
itself  to  the  uttermost.  Every  militancy  finds  here 
significance  and  energy. 


THE  TASK  OF  CIVILIZATION  209 

Roman  constructiveness  works  by  law  and  unto  law. 
This  Roman  element  seems  the  least  ideal  of  the  forces 
of  our  civilization.  It  meticulously  works  out  con- 
structions of  things  as  they  are.  The  heirs  of  Rome 
appear  of  all  men  least  aspirational.  Yet  in  this 
plodding  fidelity  to  mechanical  tasks  the  deeper  prin- 
ciple is  evident.  Law  as  declaring  what  is,  can  impose 
no  obligation  except  as  unveiling  that  which  ought 
to  be.  Unless  its  drudging  actuality  is  ethical  reality, 
no  reason  and  no  aim  can  constrain,  direct  and  enforce 
anything  in  the  organization  of  society  or  in  individual 
conduct,  and  the  Roman  constructiveness  builds  con- 
tinually a  house  upon  the  sand.  But  its  implicit 
ethic  is  nothing  less  than  that  Ought  which  is  inviol- 
able, infinite,  eternal.  Every  utilitarian  ethic,  in- 
dividual or  social,  assumes  the  transcendently  spir- 
itual principle,  or  is  a  contradiction  in  terms.  Then 
the  elaboration  of  our  tasks  regards  the  actual  none  the 
less,  and  is  an  adjustment  none  the  less  exact  of  the  real 
relations  of  things  as  they  are,  yet  all  are  for  the  eternal 
purpose,  the  universal  ordering. 

The  Celtic  and  the  Gothic  open  themselves  most 
directly  to  the  Christian  faith.  The  Celtic  mystery  is 
implicitly  the  ever-haunting  sense  of  the  infinite.  And 
of  this  nature  is  the  Gothic  realization  of  the  Celtic 
premonition.     God  has  set  eternity  in  their  hearts. 


2IO        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

The  Hellenic  leadership  of  our  civilization  cannot 
keep  within  the  bounds  which  it  prescribed  for  itself 
in  its  original  form.  The  heights  above  and  the  depths 
beneath  its  chosen  kingdom,  where  it  is  essayed  to  live 
its  life  free,  rich,  beautiful,  of  well-ordered,  self-re- 
strained buoyancy  of  soul,  were  ever  breaking  in  and 
disorganizing  that  life.  Forces  from  below  dragged 
it  down.  Forces  from  above  disrupted  it  still  more 
radically.  The  vital  power  which  that  consciousness 
possessed  before  it  accepted  its  disillusion  was  there- 
fore brief,  and  the  glories  that  followed  its  prime  were 
exquisite  fading  reflections.  Therefore  Christianity 
was  too  strong  for  Hellenism,  because  fulfilling  its 
increasingly  conscious  need.  When  reinforced  by 
other  Aryan  powers,  it  cannot  recover  from  its  early 
disaster  except  as  it  works  itself  out  into  the  higher 
principle.  The  Semitic  spirit  does  not  destroy  it,  but 
fulfills  it,  by  regenerating  it.  Its  impulse  to  attain  a 
unity  of  things,  a  harmony  of  life,  cannot  leave  any- 
thing outside  its  endeavors  without  denying  the  unity 
and  destroying  the  harmony.  Only  transcendent 
spirit,  universal  because  transcendent,  is  the  over- 
coming of  the  Hellene's  self-contradiction,  which  re- 
veals his  implicit  purpose.  Then  indeed  his  organiz- 
ings  and  harmonizings  of  life  by  ideal  forces  become 
realizable. 


THE   TASK   OF   CRTLIZATION  211 

Thus  our  Hellenic  inheritance  finds  its  deeper  self 
and  the  implicit  purpose  of  all  its  subordinates, 
Iranian,  Roman,  Celtic,  Gothic,  and  any  other  that 
history  may  add.  All  the  elements  of  their  thought, 
beauty,  and  power,  tend,  under  the  Hellenic  hegem- 
ony, to  their  freedom  and  completeness  in  the  tran- 
scendent world-conquest,  in  order  that  spirit,  subduing 
all  things  to  itself,  may  be  all  in  all.  The  Sem- 
itic task  is  inclusive  and  consummative  of  every 
element  in  the  Aryan  civilization  and  of  every  power 
in  the  developments  of  humanity. 

One  of  the  most  significant  representatives  of  Aryan 
civilization  was  not  considered  with  the  others.  India 
contains  heterogeneous  populations,  but  most  of  her 
culture  has  been  genuinely  Aryan.  She  has  renounced 
the  task  of  civilization.  Most  Aryan,  least  Semitic, 
is  this  renunciation.  India  has  been  unreceptive  of 
Occidental  influences  because  she  has  reached  a  stage 
beyond  them ;  therefore  is  she  so  difficult  for  the  Occi- 
dent to  understand.  But  our  Western  culture  may 
come  to  understand  this  disillusion  of  its  hopes,  this 
futile  result  of  its  endeavors.  Every  partial  paralysis 
of  civilization,  frequently  recurrent,  every  over- 
shadowing of  our  courage,  unveils  something  of  that 
gloomy  mystery,  the  more  as  the  promise  of  India's 
early  history  is  understood, — magnificent,  wonderful! 


212        THE  CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

Contemplating  that  resignation  of  the  world,  our 
Aryan  civilization  seems  to  fade,  its  pride  is  humbled, 
its  hopes  change  into  despair  too  wise;  human  powers 
sink  exhausted  and  decadent,  as  availing  nothing 
against  an  ineluctable  mechanism,  or  a  necessitated 
process,  to  which  all  their  sound  and  fury  signify  just 
sound  and  fury.  But  the  task  of  the  spirit  redeems 
the  tasks  of  civilization  from  such  disaster,  else  in- 
evitable. Every  spiritual  attainment  has  reality,  and 
is  cooperant  with  eternal  spirit.  Nothing  is  futile 
which  gives  itself  to  the  task  of  spirit's  self-realization. 
Against  the  disillusion  rises  the  assured  and  all- 
quickening  conviction. 

When  the  reconstruction  has  been  accepted,  our 
various  tasks  "all  seem  as  before."  In  the  radical 
changes  the  immediate  seeming  is  as  before.  It  is 
only  superficial  variances  that  hasten  to  manifest 
themselves  in  a  phenomenal  difference.  Into  the 
same  fields,  eating  the  same  bread  in  the  same  sweat 
of  face,  goes  man  the  toiler,  but  now  to  conquer  in 
and  from  and  against  the  whole  world,  that  one  thing 
precious,  his  own  soul.  He  must  learn  exhaustively 
the  world  in  whose  encounter  he  is  to  gain  himself, 
in  the  unhindered  developments  of  the  toils  which  its 
sternness  constrains,  or  its  spontaneities  unpel.  The 
assured  end  gives  exultation  to  these  labors,  now  be- 


THE  TASK  OF  CIVILIZATION  213 

come  significant,  creates  a  new  glory  in  nature  and 
the  naturalness  of  human  life  and  in  all  things  which 
are  impressed  into  the  spirit's  increase.  Nor  does  the 
inevitable  destruction  of  all  the  visible  that  shall  be 
overcome  abate  the  exultation  of  our  service.  For 
when  man  the  toiler,  at  the  conclusion  of  the  brief 
ages  allotted  to  human  life  upon  the  earth,  sees  all 
embodiments  of  his  labors  destroyed,  as  also  at  death 
every  individual  has  nothing  left  of  the  material  good 
and  beauty  he  has  wrought;  and  when  mankind  re- 
turns to  the  Master  of  the  work  confessing,  "Lord,  I 
come  back  to  Thee  empty-handed,  for  all  that  my 
science  and  art  have  constructed  are  no  more,  and 
every  form  of  human  organization  dependent  on  them 
has  with  them  been  swept  away;"  then  to  humanity, 
from  whom  God  wants  nothing  but  spirit  realized, 
shall  be  said  again:  Thou  art  My  son,  the  Beloved,  in 
thee  I  am  well  pleased. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE    TASK    OF    JESUS 

The  world-transcending  task,  which  is  appointed 
to  our  civihzation  because  imperative  upon  every 
man  and  humanity,  was  the  task  of  Jesus.  He  also 
must  win  in  and  from  and  against  the  world  that  one 
thing  precious,  His  own  soul.  If  He  so  attained  Him- 
self as  to  new-create  our  spiritual  manhood  by  suflS- 
cient  powers  for  its  self-realization,  then  His  central 
place  in  humanity  and  in  the  unfolding  spiritual 
universe  is  not  less  than  that  which  Christianity 
claims  for  Him.  The  redemptive  significance  of  Jesus 
is  to  be  expressed  in  terms  of  the  task,  in  which,  for 
Himself  and  for  the  brotherhood  of  men,  He  overcame 
the  world. 

The  word  task  may  find  its  complete  meaning  in 
Jesus.  Our  time  is  learning  to  replace  static  concep- 
tions by  kinetic,  to  think  being  in  terms  of  action, 
so  bringing  thought  into  unity  with  Hfe,  to  which  the 
inactive  is  of  no  concern,  not  even  in  life's  reposes. 
This  is  not  a  turning  back  to  becoming;  it  is  not 

merely   genetic,    evolutionary.     For   action   has   no 

214 


THE  TASK  OF  JESUS  21$ 

significance  to  life,  and  to  vitalized  thought  which 
serves  life,  except  as  action  has  aim  and  purpose. 
These  are  not  to  be  imagined  as  dead  somewhats 
outside  of  action,  but  are  recognized  as  immanent 
power  of  action's  own  unfolding.  Then  action  is  ful- 
filled in  task.  Active  being  finds  itself  when  it  finds 
its  world-transcendent  task.  For  humanity's  accom- 
plishment of  its  task,  in  our  unrestricted  conception 
of  humanity,  there  may  be,  as  we  have  seen,  a  central 
energy,  a  new-creative  power,  which  is  itself  a  personal 
task,  with  all  the  conditions  and  limitations  under 
which  a  human  person  may  accomplish  it.  The 
Christian  confession,  presented  to  mankind  to  be  the 
universal  confession,  is  this:  Jesus  is  our  Saviour  who 
accompUshed  His  task  and  ours;  for  every  member  of 
the  humanity  through  which  courses  the  power  that 
is  at  the  heart  of  it,  actively  depends  upon  that  central 
accomplishment  new-creative  of  the  whole. 

In  this  view  many  things  which  have  been  declared 
essential  to  Jesus  disappear,  and  many  things  belong- 
ing to  Him  which  it  is  becoming  customary  to  consider 
accidental  and  transitory,  are  evidently  essential. 
Everything  that  belonged  to  His  task,  even  the  ap- 
parently most  trifling  incident,  or  a  superstition  of  His 
age  which  He  shared  and  put  to  use,  is  of  abiding 
value,  because  these  things  are  elements  of  His  task: 


2i6        THE  CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

in  and  from  and  against  these  He  accomplished  Him- 
self. And  though  we  have  no  record  of  most  of  these, 
yet  they  continue  for  us  in  His  spiritual  personahty, 
progressively  realized  from  them.  On  the  other  hand, 
all  that  has  been  attributed  to  Him  which  is  not  of 
His  task  no  longer  concerns  us;  for  example,  His 
alleged  preexistence,  membership  in  the  Trinity,  place 
in  a  plan  of  salvation.  The  gain  outweighs  the  loss, 
since  the  gain  is  for  our  task,  and  the  loss  of  all  that 
is  not  for  the  task  is  gain. 

But  other  apparent  values  disappear,  whose  loss 
seems  real.  One  of  these  is  His  authority  as  teacher. 
Christian  presentations  have  lately  been  shifting  the 
stress  to  the  teaching  of  Jesus.  By  emphasizing  His 
mastery  of  the  secrets  of  the  spiritual  world,  the  church 
sought  to  recoup  herself  in  advance  for  the  losses  just 
indicated,  and  which  she  felt  unavoidable.  Soon  it 
began  to  be  perceived  that  His  authority  as  teacher 
must  be  confined  to  his  specialties,  morality  and  reh- 
gion.  But  in  these  departments  He  brought  forth 
from  His  treasures  things  new  and  old  concerning 
demoniacal  possession,  and  the  speedy  ending  of  the 
world,  and,  in  all  probability,  the  continuance  of  the 
Jewish  law  till  the  world's  end;  all  conceived  as  reli- 
gious and  ethical  values,  and  all  with  superb  inconsis- 
tencies.    Signs  of  change  and  growth,  corrections  in 


THE  TASK  OF  JESUS  217 

His  thoughts  and  the  expressions  of  them,  have  left 
traces  in  the  Gospels,  whose  interest  was  to  smooth 
away  every  inconsistency.  It  would  be  indeed  super- 
fluous to  say,  that  of  all  moral  and  religious  geniuses 
He  is  more  than  the  greatest;  that  in  spiritual  vision 
and  ethical  clarity,  He  dwarfs  all  others:  He  speaks 
not  as  scribes  who  repeat  what  they  have  learned,  but 
out  of  an  originality  that  creates,  and  transforms 
what  it  has  received  into  new  creations.  But  these 
avowals  have  nothing  to  do  with  His  alleged  inerrancy. 

A  curious  phenomenon  of  our  day  is  the  appeal  of 
some  worshippers  of  the  teachings  of  Jesus  to  historic 
criticism,  beseeching  it  to  allot  to  the  early  church 
those  reputed  sayings  of  His  whose  content  no  modern 
man  can  accept,  leaving  to  His  own  authorship  the 
words  of  eternal  life.  Discriminations  of  the  authentic 
elements  of  the  reports  concerning  Jesus  are  indeed 
among  the  most  valuable  clarifyings  of  Christianity, 
and  the  final  inner  harmony  of  Jesus'  task  is  their 
deepest  test,  but  to  undertake  them  with  prejudgment 
is  to  bring  disrepute  upon  historic  criticism  and  upon 
Jesus  as  needing  a  perversion  of  it. 

The  loss  of  the  infallible  pedagogy  of  Jesus  is  gain 
to  those  whose  sole  concern  is  life's  world-transcen- 
dent conquest.  For  it  would  be  a  cancellation  of  this 
task  to  have  the  questionings  that  belong  to  it  solved 


2i8        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

by  Him  or  another.  Even  to  recreate  His  answers  in 
our  own  souls  is  not  all  that  man  the  toiler  and  searcher 
has  to  undertake.  To  transform  traditional  and  en- 
vironing superstition  and  individual  limitation  into 
powers  of  vision  and  deed,  not  externally  authorita- 
tive, but  sufficient  for  us  to  overcome  by,  is  enough 
for  Him  to  do,  enough  for  us  that  He  should  do.  Any- 
thing beyond  that  would  be  less  than  that.  One  is 
true  teacher  who  takes  us  not  so  much  into  his  truth 
as  into  his  search  for  truth,  not  so  much  to  the  summits 
of  his  attainments  as  into  the  labor  that  attains.  Or, 
to  speak  more  accurately,  truth  itself  is  not  an  external 
something,  to  the  presence  of  which  we  may  at  length 
hope  to  come,  but  is  just  spirit's  self-development. 
Truth  itself  is  continual  task  and  battle  of  this  self- 
conquest,  which  transforms  all  things  into  itself.  He 
who  sufiiciently  empowers  us  is  supreme  teacher, 
whom  we  reverence  not  as  authority  but  as  energy 
of  our  unfolding. 

Great  is  the  advance  of  that  faith  in  Jesus  which 
has  learned  Him  as  simplest  and  deepest  realization 
of  religion,  as  we  recognize  in  Him  that  which  the 
human  child  may  be  to  the  eternal  Father,  and  accept 
God  as  He  knew  Him,  the  Father  of  our  most  child- 
like, manliest  trust  and  obedience  and  love.  Our 
danger  here  is  that  we  take  too  Hghtly  His  vital  faith 


THE  TASK  OF  JESUS  219 

and  our  own  as  learned  from  Him.  We  make  our  own 
faith  too  easy  if  we  assume  in  Him  a  sonship  won  and 
kept  too  easily.  Jesus,  filled  with  the  consciousness 
of  sonship  by  the  Spirit  of  the  Father  dwelling  in  Him, 
going  forth  into  the  awful  strife  wherein  He  overcame 
the  world,— that  is  not  all  He  had  to  do.  His  fellow- 
ship with  the  Father  was  not  static,  but  dynamic;  it 
was,  because  it  was  ever  being  attained.  Here  was  the 
hardest  toil  of  His  task.  In  his  sonship  there  is  indeed 
no  trace  of  a  time  when  He  was  in  any  act  or  thought 
unreconciled  to  God.  But  this  signifies  that  He  had 
never  failed  in  the  task  of  bringing  into  that  sonship 
the  most  recalcitrant  elements  of  experience,  and  of 
winning  continuously  in  and  from  and  against  the 
world  the  son's  deepening  life  in  the  eternal. 

Therefore  in  this  genuine  task  not  all  is  unclouded 
confidence  of  victory,  or  unwavering  vision  of  the  face 
of  God.  Triumphant  exultation  in  the  grace  that  is 
hidden  from  the  wise  and  prudent  and  revealed  unto 
babes,  and  that  bids  the  weary  and  heavy  laden  come 
to  His  rest  of  soul,  alternates  with  utter  weariness 
under  the  burden  of  the  faithless  and  perverse  genera- 
tion. There  was  the  repeated  vision  of  His  final 
triumph,  and  the  heavy  questioning  whether  the  Son 
of  Man  should  find  faith  on  the  earth  at  His  coming. 
There  was  restfulness  in  the  infinite  purpose,  the  re- 


2  20        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

ferring  of  the  evil  of  every  morrow  to  the  Will  that 
shapes  all  things  for  His  children's  good;  and  there  was 
the  agony  that  attained  the  prayer,  Thy  will  be  done. 
Even  that  cry  from  the  cross  which  we  cannot  endure 
to  suppose  His,  is  not  impossible.  The  deepest  and 
hoHest  fellowship  of  the  human  spirit  with  the  Spirit 
all-holy  and  all-loving  belongs  to  the  task  of  the  tran- 
scendent overcoming  of  the  world. 

The  emphasis  upon  the  task  of  Jesus  corrects  those 
thoughts  of  Him  which  ask  too  little,  as  well  as  those 
which  ask  the  too  much  that  is  too  little.  The  saying, 
Jesus  is  our  example,  appeals  by  its  endeavor  to  re- 
place christological  dogmatisms  by  an  ethical  and 
serviceable  salvation.  But  the  phrase  connotes  the 
individuaUstic  deism  which  is  ignorant  of  vital  rela- 
tions and  interblendings,  and  which  separates  man 
from  man  no  less  than  from  God.  Not  so  did  a 
Kempis  understand  the  kindred  phrase,  The  Imitation 
of  Christ.  One  does  not  become  like  the  hero  by  copy- 
ing him.  And  one  does  not  gain  influence  by  aiming 
to  set  a  good  example.  Yet  let  such  criticisms  keep 
the  tenderness  which  fears  to  cause  any  man  to  stum- 
ble, and  the  confidence  that  any  earnest  approach 
to  Jesus  ends  by  entering  His  vitalizing  power,  if  only 
we  do  not  stop  when  He  bids  us  come  further.  When 
my  worship  of  a  noble  soul's  example  becomes  aware 


THE  TASK  OF  JESUS  221 

that  all  he  does  and  attains  is  his  toil  and  strife;  when 
into  that  interminable  struggle  of  his  I  am  taken; 
when  the  powers  of  his  overcoming  become  mine,  that 
I  may  overcome,  and  my  life  which  I  had  fondly 
thought  might  externally  resemble  his,  flows  from  his 
into  forms  not  hke  his,  but  with  his  power  to  trans- 
form that  which  I,  in  my  different  time  and  place,  must 
subdue,  then  I  begin  to  see  how  Jesus  may  be  source  and 
center  of  the  supreme  task  for  myself  and  for  all  men. 
Is  the  moral  integrity  of  Jesus,  which  is  commonly 
called  His  sinlessness,  consistent  with  this  task? 
Christ's  sinlessness,  as  the  traditional  theologies  have 
formulated  Christ,  is  not  a  difficult  conception,  when 
once  we  suppose  that  anything  whatever  can  be  pred- 
icated of  such  a  Christ,  that  He  can  touch  the  world 
and  our  life  at  all.  Deity — if  that  be  deity — with  a 
knowledge  impossible  to  us,  with  a  nature  which 
renders  it  like  a  warrior  invulnerable  at  every  point 
and  with  a  magic  sword  irresistible,  should  have  no 
difficulty  in  preserving  itself  uncontaminate  from 
that  which  has  no  access  to  it.  When  it  is  said  of  a 
Christ  so  formulated,  "He  was  tempted  in  all  points 
like  as  we  are,"  and  when  we  hear  Him  describing 
His  ministry  with  the  men  who  were  closest  to  Him, 
''Ye  are  they  who  have  been  with  Me  in  My  tempta- 
tions," that  which  is  predicated  falls  away  from  the 


22  2         THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

subject  so  conceived.  To  think  of  such  a  being  as 
anything  but  sinless  is  a  contradiction  in  terms. 
It  is  another  question  with  a  different  value,  when 
we  confront  His  task,  all  the  more  clearly  actual 
and  individual,  because  the  same  in  nature  with  that 
which  all  men  have  to  accompHsh,  and  because  the 
center  of  humanity. 

Goodness  in  our  humanity  is  identical  with  the  task. 
This  goodness  is  not  something  above  the  task,  to 
accomplish  the  task  by.  It  is  not  something  beyond 
the  task,  for  the  task  to  attain.  Goodness  is  con- 
tinual attaining.  That  in  which  and  from  and  against 
which  the  spirit  is  to  be  won,  and  all  the  limitations 
and  conditions  to  be  thus  conquered  and  transformed, 
are  essential  to  the  goodness  which  is  just  this  over- 
coming. It  is  the  task  itself  which  is  the  exclusion 
of  evil,  or  rather  its  destruction.  In  accepting  the 
historic  humanity  of  Jesus,  in  which  abides  a  divinity 
greater  and  closer  than  in  all  the  creeds,  we  do  not 
make  His  moral  integrity  impossible.  This  accept- 
ance first  makes  it  possible.  If  we  avoid  the  words 
perfect  and  absolute,  it  is  because  we  shun  the  sug- 
gestion of  a  goodness  outside  the  task,  a  goodness 
that  would  not  be  good  at  all.  It  is  preferable  to 
speak  of  the  holy  Jesus,  with  no  reservation  in  that 
confession. 


THE  TASK  OF  JESUS  223 

Thus  the  question  of  Jesus'  character  assumes  a 
deeper  earnestness.  Where  that  earnestness  is  lack- 
ing, Christianity  is  in  principle  repudiated.  The 
concession,  especially  when  it  is  a  silent  evasion,  that 
the  founder  of  Christianity  lacks  that  which  any 
vital  faith  makes  the  reason  for  turning  to  Him,  takes 
from  our  humanity  and  from  every  soul  in  it  the 
central  energy  of  its  task.  Christianity  disappears 
with  the  fading  out  of  its  distinctive  conception  of 
sin  and  its  assurance  of  redemption  to  the  uttermost, 
which  its  experience  identifies  with  Jesus.  To  such 
an  intensity  Jesus  is  either  Saviour  or  He  is  nothing 
in  comparison.  As  Saviour  He  must  be  sufficient 
to  make  holy  the  central  energy  of  the  all-inclusive 
life  task. 

The  explanations  and  exculpations  of  sin  which  men 
have  urged  outside  of  Christianity  are  excluded  from 
Christianity.  And  it  is  the  holy  Jesus  who  has  made 
them  impossible.  Because  of  His  holiness,  we  know 
that  moral  evil  is  not  incompleteness  to  be  outgrown. 
It  is  not  a  necessary  incident  in  a  normal  process  and 
therefore  holding  in  itself  the  soul  of  goodness.  It 
cannot  be  confused  with  natural  evil,  as  being  ac- 
counted for,  to  the  relief  of  our  responsibility,  by  our 
animal  inheritance  or  our  physical  organization, 
by  our  environment,  circumstance,  fate,  nature,  or 


2  24         THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

moral    incompetence.      Whatever    powers    may    be 
exerted  by  these  things  of  lower  than  spiritual  range, 
in  determining  the  forms  of  sin,  its  source  and  nature 
are  declared  to  be  a  perversity  in  the  self-determining 
human  spirit  itself,  so  declared  by  the  unperverted, 
the  holy  Jesus.    Hindrances  to  the  good  are  demands 
upon  the  good  to  realize  itself  against  them;  these 
demands  He  fulfilled.    Sin  is  contrary  to  our  relation 
to  the  eternal  holiness  and  love,  wherein  He  stood. 
It  is  against  the  Father  of  our  spirits,  who  opens  His 
own  self  to  His  children,  even  as  Jesus  received  Him. 
Therefore  sin  is  against  our  own  souls  which  must 
live  in  God's  holy  spiritual  life,  which  was  Jesus' 
dwelling-place.    At  its  least  it  is  our  self-disruption, 
for  He  continually  brought  every  power  and  experi- 
ence into  the  unity  of  the  undivided  devotion.    At  its 
culmination  it  is  the  annulling  of  everything  normal 
within  us,  for  it  loses  relation  with  Him.    Because  of 
our  destined  fellowship  of  holy  love  with  our  fellow- 
men,  for  His  task  was  service  and  sacrifice,  it  is  chaos 
of  the  social  order  and  demoralization  of  the  spiritual 
universe.    The  Christian  conviction  of  sin  is  darkened 
except  as  it  kneels  in  the  light  of  His  holy  task  and 
overcoming. 

It  is  the  consciousness  of  guilt,  awakened  by  the 
holy  Jesus,  which  flings  us,  without  excuse  or  claim. 


THE  TASK  OF  JESUS  225 

upon  the  mercy  of  the  eternal  hohness,  to  acknowledge 
the  self -Incurred  moral  helplessness.  We  hunger  and 
thirst  after  a  righteousness  which  shall  be  God's  com- 
plete redemption  of  us.  Impulse  of  repentance,  ideal 
of  moral  attainment,  assurance  of  divinely  wrought 
moral  and  spiritual  salvation,  confidence  in  God's 
gracious  will  and  inexhaustible  power  to  save,  rev- 
elation of  God's  own  inviting  holiness  which  can  be 
none  other  than  the  sacrificial  love  of  the  crucified, 
all  these  are  found  in  the  life,  individual,  concrete, 
personal,  of  Him  in  whose  will  and  heart  and  thought, 
and  expressive  word  and  deed,  the  eternal  goodness 
has  its  home. 

Nothing  is  more  dishearteningly  dilettante  in  the 
flippancies  of  our  time,  which  may  also  occupy  them- 
selves with  Jesus,  than  the  self-complacent  presump- 
tion of  appropriating  those  elements  of  His  conscious- 
ness which  we  flatter  ourselves  are  congenial  to  us, 
as  His  fihal  consciousness  of  God,  His  enthusiasms  of 
service,  while  the  moral  difference  between  Him  and 
ourselves  is  disregarded,  with  the  fundamental  rela- 
tion to  Him  disregarded  which  is  given  in  that  differ- 
ence. This  is  to  make  Jesus  like  ourselves,  instead 
of  striving  to  be  like  Him.  This  is  to  deny  Him  by  the 
confession  of  Him.  This  is  also  to  lose  those  elements 
of  His  moral  and  religious  consciousness  which  we 


2  26        THE  CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

superficially  identify  in  His  experience  and  our  own. 
To  know  His  sonship  to  the  Father  we  must  know  our 
disparity  from  Him  who  was  ever  in  accord  with  the 
Father's  will,  while  our  filial  relation  is  accomphshed 
in  the  divine  forgiveness  of  transgressions.  This 
disparity  and  the  others  must  ever  continue,  for  the 
forgiveness  of  sin,  with  its  restoration  to  the  hallowing 
grace  of  God,  is  not  an  incident  of  the  Christian  life, 
but  its  abiding  source  and  continually  deepening  con- 
sciousness. The  spiritual  victory  of  Jesus  is  the  origin 
of  Christianity,  the  energy  of  its  unfolding,  and  the 
strength  of  its  appeal. 

Considerations  bearing  on  the  holiness  of  Jesus 
which  fall  short  of  the  innermost  Christian  conviction, 
experience,  and  redemptive  power,  may  yet  clarify 
this  fundamental  Christian  consciousness  and  issue 
in  it.  They  will  help  to  manifest  the  character  of  Jesus 
as  the  world-transcending  task  and  victory. 

This  service  is  rendered  even  by  the  allegation  that 
such  holiness  is  contrary  to  human  possibilities,  and 
that  it  denies  the  very  conception  of  man  and  is 
therefore  impossible  to  the  man  Jesus.  Strange  confu- 
sions of  thought  and  moral  consciousness  are  involved 
in  this  objection.  Such  conceptions  cannot  keep  any 
significance  in  the  words  sin  and  holiness,  for  both 
are  made  at  once  normal  and  abnormal.    Or  when  it 


THE  TASK  OF  JESUS  227 

is  more  vulgarly  said :  There  is  no  more  likelihood  of  a 
perfect  specimen  of  humanity  than  of  a  perfect 
specimen  of  any  other  species, — this  crudely  concep- 
tual argument  which  begs  the  question,  moves  outside 
the  realm  of  moral  values  and  has  no  necessary  ap- 
plication to  a  moral  being.  Considerations  of  this 
nature  gain  dignity  and  import  when  they  assume  the 
evolutionary  form.  To  our  present  fashion  of  thought 
it  may  well  seem  a  contradiction  that  a  perfect  char- 
acter maybe  realized  in  a  process — and  indeed  an  early 
stage  of  the  process — of  age-long  moral  evolution. 
The  Christian  answer  may  forbear  to  urge  the  con- 
fusion here  between  physical  and  moral  processes. 
Its  answer  is:  Holiness  is  not  a  completed  moral 
attainment,  which  is  indeed  an  unmoral  conception, 
for  in  it  moral  action  ceases,  but  holiness  is  itself  the 
task  and  conflict  of  the  transcendent  overcoming  of 
the  world.  To  an  evolution  that  denies  moral  values 
this  answer  has  no  pertinence,  but  such  an  evolution 
has  no  pertinence,  either  to  Christianity,  or  to  any 
moral  consciousness. 

Such  misconceptions  are  largely  derived  from  that 
dogma  which,  most  blaspheming  humanity,  blas- 
phemes Jesus.  Its  evil  impression  remains,  even  in 
those  who  have  repudiated  it;  and  its  corollaries  are 
not  always  perceived  to  depend  upon  the  discredited 


228        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

theorem.  In  mankind,  we  are  informed,  corrupted  by 
the  fall,  there  is  total  depravity  and  inability  of  moral 
good.  Therefore  in  order  that  redemption  may  be, 
Jesus,  mankind's  Saviour,  is  inhumanly  divine,  as  at- 
tested by  His  miraculous  birth  from  a  virgin,— though 
it  would  be  better  for  this  scheme  if  He  had  not  been 
born  at  all.  The  moment  the  virgin  birth  is  resolved 
into  a  legend,  and  Jesus  is  believed  to  be  what  He 
declares  and  presents  Himself,  then  according  to 
this  argument  the  universal  human  corruption  would 
attach  to  Him.  The  cure  for  these  perverse  imagin- 
ings is  to  learn  from  Jesus  that  real  holiness  which  toils 
and  overcomes. 

Not  all  the  sources  of  the  confusion  are  so  unworthy, 
though  this  one  continually  exerts  its  influence  upon 
the  others,  concealing  from  us,  in  the  name  of  Chris- 
tianity, what  normal  humanity  may  be.  Holiness  is 
not  our  complete  moral  attainment,  for  that  can 
never  be.  It  is  not  to  be  judged  by  its  content,  but 
by  its  will.  The  moral  content  of  a  child's  character 
is  very  small.  Vast  realms  of  moral  endeavor  are  as 
yet  unmoralized.  Many  impulses  are  still  in  their 
animal  stage;  moral  judgments  are  not  yet  appHed 
to  them.  Innumerable  are  the  mistakes  of  action, 
estimated  by  the  man's  clarified  moral  judgment, 
which  has  no  application,  for  it  does  not  yet  exist. 


THE  TASK  OF  JESUS  229 

Traditional  moralities  are  accepted  without  correction 
or  criticism.  The  child's  obedience  may  be  to  pre- 
cepts which  he  later  spurns  as  evil.  His  very  trust 
may  go  out  to  that  which  proves  to  be  ethically  un- 
worthy. He  hears  and  questions  the  doctors  of  the 
law,  blind  leaders  of  the  blind.  His  love  is  deceived. 
Yet  if  the  will  of  the  child  is  to  do  the  right,  as  the 
child's  immaturity  conceives  the  right,  we  call  one 
monstrous  who  blames  that  blamelessness  and  in- 
humanly refuses  to  love  and  revere  the  childlike  holi- 
ness. 

Through  every  stage  of  His  spiritual  self-realization, 
God's  child  refused  the  homage  due  to  the  consum- 
mate world-transcendent  goodness;  "Why  callest  thou 
Me  good!  One  is  good,  that  is  God."  God's  child 
included  Himself  in  the  prayer,  "Forgive  us  our 
debts;"  for  that  strange  word  is  unaccountable,  except 
as  spoken  by  Jesus  and  for  this  reason,  the  contrition 
of  human  incompleteness  before  the  demands  of  God. 
Jesus  united  Himself  with  His  brethren,  not  in  their 
sin,  but  in  uncompleted  obligation.  And  if  there  be 
anything  historic  in  the  word  attributed  to  Jesus  by 
the  Gospel  of  the  Hebrews,  when,  just  before  His 
baptism,  He  denied  any  consciousness  of  committed 
sin,  but  would  not  aflEirm  his  sinlessness,  leaving  that 
to  God's  judgment,  the  explanation  lies  in  this  direc- 


23©        THE  CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

tion.  The  will  that  wills  the  good,  and  increasingly 
makes  the  good  the  content  of  character,  is  made  per- 
fect through  discipline  and  suffering.  This  is  the  only 
holiness  that  can  be  the  central  energy  of  our  task  of 
overcoming  the  world. 

The  holiness  of  Jesus  cannot  indeed  be  completely 
established  by  the  Gospel  records,  so  long  as  we  keep 
the  Jesus  to  which  they  witness  in  an  external  relation 
to  our  spiritual  life.  But  through  these  records,  and 
from  the  actual,  the  historic  Jesus,  and  in  Him,  this 
redemptive  power  is  appropriated  which  is  the  final 
vindication  of  His  holiness.  We  do  not  accept  the 
undiscriminating  denial  that  the  unclouded  holiness 
of  Jesus  can  be  established  historically.  For  history 
has  come  to  have  a  different  significance  to  us  from 
that  which  is  connoted  in  this  apparent  profundity. 
From  this  significance  we  do  not  separate  His  actual 
life,  as  the  records  of  it  make  it  accessible.  Nor  does 
it  seem  a  very  astute  reflection  that  the  sinlessness 
of  Jesus  cannot  be  established  historically  because  we 
cannot  summon  to  our  inquisition  all  His  words  and 
actions,  all  the  thoughts  and  intents  of  His  heart. 
The  presentation  made  by  the  Gospels  is  not  all  of  the 
final  test,  but  it  is  a  part  of  the  one  historic  test.  His- 
tory is  the  significance  of  events.  Even  a  single  event 
may  reveal  the  doer's  essential  quality. 


THE  TASK  OF  JESUS  231 

One  of  the  many  important  considerations  in  this 
field  is  the  absence  of  any  trace  of  repentance  in  Jesus, 
with  His  peerless  moral  discernment  and  deHcacy, 
which  were  ever  centered  upon  His  accomplishment  of 
the  eternal  righteousness.  This  is  consistent  only  with 
the  severely-tested  consciousness  of  having  always 
been  well-pleasing  to  the  Father.  This  consciousness 
is  made  the  more  significant  by  His  sane  insistence 
upon  His  own  moral  incompleteness  in  the  presence 
of  infinite  holiness.  For  there  is  intimated  no  per- 
versity, nor  any  break  with  a  sin-stained  past,  but 
that  His  character  was  formed  in  very  humanness, 
through  moral  conflicts  in  which  He  continually  over- 
came. With  this  self-knowledge  is  historically  con- 
nected the  confession  by  the  earliest  Christian  com- 
munity, of  the  divine  value  of  its  Lord — however 
peculiarly  expressed — for  this  conviction  arises  from 
the  companionship  of  their  apostolic  leaders  with  the 
holy  Master,  and  its  deeper  evidence  was  the  moral 
new-creation  in  the  life  of  every  disciple.  In  this  his- 
toric unity  is  contained  the  experience  of  any  soul  in 
whom  the  ancient  evangel  has  issued  in  a  new  hfe, 
ever  mighty  in  its  dependence  upon  Jesus,  ever  con- 
trite before  Him. 

The  importance  of  the  Gospel  records  in  regard  to 
the  character  of  Jesus,  is  not  that  they  omit  any  men- 


232         THE  CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

tion  of  fault  and  impute  to  Him  the  performance  of 
every  duty.  Such  blamelessness  has  been  attributed 
by  other  biographers  to  their  heroes.  It  is  not  that 
Jesus  is  the  teacher  of  a  perfect  ethic,  even  if  that 
claim  could  be  urged  without  discrimination,  for  His 
fundamental  significance  is  not  in  His  teaching.  But 
that  which  the  Gospels  disclose  is  a  character  that 
transcends  all  moral  norms  not  derived  from  Him,  and 
yet  unifies  and  realizes  men's  strugglings  after  good. 
This  character  comes  with  the  mission  to  impart  itself, 
and  with  the  consciousness  that  it  so  realizes  itself  as 
to  be  sufficient  for  the  impartation;  a  goodness  either 
not  at  all,  or  all  in  all.  The  stammering  attempts 
of  the  authors  of  the  Gospel  to  describe  Him,  the 
inconsistencies  of  their  presentations  of  Him,  show 
how  far  He  was  above  their  utmost  moral  reach, 
though  they  lived  in  the  moral  power  that  came  from 
Him. 

Jesus'  character  was  not,  as  presented  in  the  three 
historic  Gospels  and  the  historical  remainders  of  the 
fourth,  the  goodness  of  an  ideal  lifted  above  the  task 
of  realizing  spiritual  manhood.  He  repudiated  such 
a  goodness.  It  was  not  the  goodness  of  one  who  has 
already  transformed  every  element  of  hfe  into  full- 
orbed  perfectness,  though  His  moral  stature  might 
make  it  seem  so.    His  goal  was  to  be  attained.    It  was 


THE  TASK  OF  JESUS  233 

not  a  goodness  that  makes  Him  an  external  authority 
even  in  the  moral  realm,  which  would  then  disappear. 
Our  problems  of  life  still  remain  for  our  own  solution. 
Visions  of  the  good  are  for  our  own  beholding.  Moral 
attainments  are  for  our  own  free  energizing.  The 
source  and  center  of  humanity's  moral  and  spiritual 
task  makes  that  task  our  own  in  every  particular  and 
in  unrestricted  scope. 

There  is  presented  in  the  Jesus  of  the  Gospels  un- 
deviating  faithfulness  to  the  clarifyings  of  ethical 
judgment,  with  the  accumulation  of  moral  power  and 
the  continual  transformation  of  all  things  into  the 
spiritual.  And  from  the  unknown  years  before  His 
ministry  no  cloud  dims  His  integrity  or  darkens  His 
joy  of  pleasing  the  Holy  Father.  Yet  we  must  be 
careful  how  we  classify  Jesus  in  that  type  of  rehgious 
experience  which  attains  by  growth,  not  by  revolution, 
as  in  contrast  with  the  religious  personality  of  Paul. 
Jesus'  disposition  was  such  that  His  moral  insight 
and  power,  unless  they  were  a  holy  growth  from  the 
beginning,  could  be  attained  only  by  revolutionary 
catastrophies  of  unimaginable  violence,  with  effects 
beyond  anything  in  the  great  apostle.  His  temper- 
ament was  of  an  unparalleled  intensity.  Catastrophic, 
soul-shattering,  are  His  moral  and  religious  crises, 
with  results  ever  afterward  evident  and  ineffaceable: 


234         THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

witness  the  crises  of  His  baptism,  of  that  revolution 
in  His  mission  which  tradition  expressed  by  His  trans- 
figuration; witness  Gethsemane.  Yet  there  is  no 
trace  of  the  catastrophe  of  sin  and  its  repentance. 
That  He  in  His  moral  and  rehgious  intensities  incon- 
ceivable by  us  could  have  refrained  from  evidencing 
such  a  crisis  if  experienced,  is  simply  impossible.  Such 
a  supposition  involves  not  merely  a  diminution  of  the 
Jesus  of  the  Gospels,  or  His  impediment ;  it  would  be  a 
change  of  essential  quality.  It  would  leave  to  no  act 
or  word  of  His  that  quality  which  makes  them  His 
acts  and  words. 

Only  in  that  consciousness  could  His  mission  be 
undertaken.  A  light  upon  the  moral  consciousness  of 
Jesus  is  the  doctrine,  current  in  His  time,  of  the  sin- 
lessness  of  the  expected  Messiah.  This  was  not  a 
difficult  conception  to  those  who  attributed  sinlessness 
to  Abraham  also,  and  to  other  heroes  of  Israelitish 
piety.  But  it  was  a  thought  which  Jesus  could  not 
hold  lightly.  Without  the  consciousness  of  having 
always  been  well-pleasing  to  the  Father  He  could  not 
conceive  the  possibility  of  being  chosen  by  Him  to  the 
office  of  Messiah.  Only  in  this  consciousness  could 
He  obey  the  call  in  utter  humility,  in  meekness  and 
lowliness  of  heart,  in  self-renouncing  acceptance  of 
the  divine  will.    Nor  need  this  consideration  lose  its 


THE  TASK  OF  JESUS  235 

force  to  those  who  question  whether  He  regarded 
Himself  as  Messiah,  though  that  negative  supposition 
is  appearing  more  and  more  clearly  an  anachronism. 
If  He  did  not  formulate  His  mission,  with  its  personal 
relation  to  His  Father  and  to  His  brethren,  in  terms  of 
Messiahship,  it  was  because  He  felt  it  too  deep  and 
holy  for  that  formulation.  His  was  a  religious  con- 
sciousness that  either  accepted  and  broke  through  all 
traditional  Messianic  conceptions,  or  else  had  no  need 
of  them.  To  an  historic  appreciation  of  Jesus  which 
refuses  to  modernize  Him  the  latter  supposition  is  the 
more  difficult,  even  when  other  objections  to  it  are 
disregarded.  In  either  case  the  unshadowed  con- 
sciousness of  moral  integrity  before  His  Father  was 
indispensable. 

The  integrity  of  Jesus  knelt  before  the  absolute 
holiness  in  a  humility  without  a  claim.  This  moral 
sanity  is  in  contrast  with  that  lack  of  confidence  in 
Him  which  fears  to  rise  from  the  Christ  of  dogma  to 
the  Jesus  of  reality,  and  hesitates  to  send  the  im- 
maculate champion  into  an  actual  battle,  but  would 
keep  his  virtue  untested.  He,  leaving  the  morally 
complete  to  the  absolutely  holy,  and  thus  depending 
upon  it  unreservedly,  trusted  the  perfect  fatherhood 
to  be  satisfied  with  faithfulness  to  the  task,  so  long, 
arduous,  sore-beset,  of  the  transcendent  world-con- 


236        THE  CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

quest,  whereby  He  won  our  spiritual  manhood  in  and 
from  and  against  the  world. 

Such  considerations  are  not  the  less  important  be- 
cause they  cannot  of  themselves,  as  external  data, 
produce  that  conviction  of  the  moral  integrity  of 
Jesus  which  is  of  final  value.  We  are  not  persuaded  of 
His  moral  sufficiency  so  long  as  it  remains  an  object 
of  admiration.  Its  excellence  as  presented  to  us  may 
attract  us  to  that  which  is  able  to  become  power 
within  us,  but  His  hoHness  can  never  be  sufficiently 
estimated  till  we  put  it  to  the  inner  proof.  As  our 
knowledge  of  our  fellowmen  generally  is  not  inferred 
from  the  presented  phenomena  which  mediate  it, 
but  is  an  interior  recognition  of  soul  by  kindred 
soul,  so  with  that  knowledge  in  its  consummate 
realization,  which  is  the  assurance  of  the  holy  Jesus 
by  the  inner  life  energized  and  penetrated  by  His 
historic  self.  Nor  need  any  man  wait  for  a  conclusion 
from  facts  as  external,  before  undertaking  the  world- 
transcending  task  in  His  power.  When  His  task  is 
attempted,  or  when  any  ethical  element  of  humanity 
unfolds  its  nature  unto  His  task,  then  His  achieve- 
ment makes  us  new  men  for  the  supreme  and  inevitable 
undertaking,  with  new  consciousness  of  power  to 
accompHsh  it.  To  overcome  in  His  overcoming  is  to 
be  satisfied  with  the  character  of  Jesus. 


THE  TASK  OF  JESUS  237 

The  Christian  conviction  of  sin  is  Jesus'  creation, 
and  no  other  contrition  approaches  its  depth  and 
earnestness.  It  is  not  a  result  of  His  teaching  merely, 
except  as  His  teaching  is  an  expression  of  Himself. 
It  is  not  that  His  moral  teaching  is  reinforced  by 
His  character,  but  His  character  is  the  illumination, 
and  His  words  are  mighty  because  they  are  of  it. 
The  Christian  conviction  of  sin  is  not  the  effect  of  any 
dogma  or  of  any  scheme  or  plan  into  which  Christ 
is  supposed  to  enter.  All  these  are  perverted  render- 
ings of  His  new-creative  power  of  all-judging  and  all- 
redeeming  holiness,  and  from  them  we  return  to  Him. 
The  Christian  conviction  of  sin  does  not  precede  Him, 
derived  from  a  teaching  of  the  fall  of  man,  or  from  any 
experience,  not  produced  by  Him,  of  sin  and  its  misery. 
The  sense  of  moral  need,  worthlessness,  and  ill-desert 
is  indeed  a  force  that  turns  toward  Jesus,  but  it  be- 
comes intense  to  receive  His  salvation  when  His 
holiness  develops  it,  rather  creates  a  new  quality 
within  it,  even  the  faith  that  receives  His  power  to 
save.  This  creative  power  of  conviction  is  just  His 
historic  self,  in  the  sense  which  that  word  historic 
attains  to  one  who  comes  into  touch  with  the  real 
Jesus;  not  a  conception  of  Him  as  apart  from  mankind 
and  human  Hfe,  and  then  somehow  brought  into  con- 
nection with  us,  but  just  His  character  purely  achieved 


238        THE  CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

amid  all  the  limitations  of  our  humanity,  and  glorious 
just  in  the  accomplishment  of  its  task, — how  glorious, 
only  the  ever  deepening  comprehension  of  that  ac- 
complishment can  make  plain  to  us.  His  revelation 
of  what  we  men  are  includes  Himself  in  its  impla- 
cable light,  and  finds  Him  pure  light,  since  He  is  that 
light's  source.  And  the  soul  which  is  brought  under 
conviction  of  sin  from  the  holy  Jesus,  turns  for  re- 
demption not  to  any  dogma  concerning  Him,  but 
just  to  Him,  as  life  of  purity  and  love.  To  the  Chris- 
tian experience  when  it  clarifies  itself  from  alien  in- 
trusions, no  conception  of  Jesus  is  possible  which 
compromises  or  doubts  His  holy  character.  And 
while  this  assurance  can,  from  its  nature,  be  complete 
only  in  this  faith  in  Jesus,  yet  every  man  is  open  to 
that  evangel,  which  commends  and  vindicates  itself 
as  the  one  evangel  of  a  moral  redemption  where  the 
heart  can  rest  and  the  spirit  strive  on  forever. 

Thus  Jesus  is  not  an  example  for  imitation,  though 
one  who  begins  there  may  be  brought  from  example 
to  indwelling  power.  Jesus  is  not  a  teacher  whose 
sayings  we  accept  because  He  said  them,  though  He 
leads  us  into  that  searching,  that  unfolding  of  the 
spirit  which  is  itself  the  truth.  Jesus  is  not  Son  of 
God  without  our  conflict  to  attain  that  heritage;  but 
in  faithfulness  tested  to  the  uttermost  He  realizes 


THE  TASK  OF  JESUS  239 

sonship  to  the  Father,  with  power  to  make  us  His 
brethren.  Jesus  is  not  the  performer  of  certain  con- 
ditions prerequisite  to  our  salvation,  though  His 
actual  life  and  death  and  victory  over  death  are  the 
source  of  our  salvation,  grace  by  us  unmerited.  Our 
union  with  Jesus  is  not  to  be  mystically  apprehended, 
though  mystical  experiences  may,  if  ethical  at  heart, 
express  our  joy  and  wonder  in  the  sufficiency  for  us  of 
His  overcoming,  and  we  must  learn  that  His  ethical 
and  spiritual  indwelling  are  more  inward  than  all 
imaginings,  deeper  than  anything  given  in  the  world 
of  sense,  closer  than  any  space,  more  immediate 
than  any  time. 

It  is  in  ethical  and  spiritual  relations  that  a  man 
becomes  one  with  his  fellowman,  and  that  the  one 
humanity  is  formed;  and  these  unities  are  wrought  by 
the  actual  achievements  of  great  souls.  There  have 
been  in  history  overcomings  for  millions  of  lives  to 
conquer  by  directly.  Though  the  memory  of  these 
achievements  be  lost,  and  we  become  ignorant  of 
the  powers  that  have  thus  lifted  humanity  toward 
its  summit  where  men  meet,  yet  these  uniting  energies 
do  not  grow  weaker  for  any  distance  or  any  lapse  of 
time;  therefore  in  and  from  and  against  space  and 
time  they  win  the  universal  and  eternal.  The  su- 
preme victory,  the  victory  of  Jesus,  is  the  same  in 


240        THE  CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

nature  and  operation  with  these  triumphs  of  the  soul, 
that  it  may  be  their  consummation.  Yet  as  supreme 
it  stands  above  the  rest,  that  they  may  be  trans- 
formed into  His  victory.  His  victory  sweeps  into  the 
heart  of  every  toiler  who  will  receive  it,  the  world 
over  and  history  through,  and  out  beyond  our  mortal 
ranges  wherever  the  task  essential  to  spiritual  beings 
must  be  performed.  This  vitalizing  source  and  irradi- 
ating center  energizes  the  great  task  which  humanity 
has  to  accomplish,  and  unites  humanity  into  the 
unity  of  the  task.  It  both  completes  and  new-creates 
humanity  with  sufficient  powers  for  spiritual  self- 
realization.  It  fulfills  in  its  consummate  achieve- 
ment everything  that  man  and  other  spiritual  crea- 
tions have  to  do  in  this  world  and  beyond.  Let  it 
be  said  again,  that  with  this  conception  of  Jesus, 
this  faith  in  Him,  we  need  not  make  a  distinction, 
in  His  mission  and  message,  between  the  temporal  and 
the  eternal,  the  kernel  and  the  shell,  the  absolute  and 
the  conditioned,  something  in  Him  to  be  kept  and 
something  to  be  cast  away;  for  it  is  all  the  one  Jesus  of 
the  task  in  which  we  overcome.  We  need  no  longer 
separate  the  historic  and  the  ideal,  since  just  the  task 
He  wrought  is  of  universal  and  eternal  scope. 

We  are   constrained   to  say,   "The  Holy  Jesus," 
and   holiness   is   separateness   from   all   except   the 


THE  TASK  OF  JESUS  241 

highest  that  can  be,  yet  we  say,  "The  Holy  Jesus," 
as  we  think  of  Him  in  closest  encounter  with  the 
world.  This  combination  is  possible  only  if  His 
task,  even  the  task  which  He  makes  possible  for  us, 
is  the  world-transcending  task.  This  is  the  task  of 
which  He  is  the  original,  taking  into  Himself  all 
premonitions  of  it,  and  vindicating  it  as  alone  able 
to  complete  every  soul  and  mankind.  The  Holy 
Jesus  is  center  and  source  of  humanity  new-created 
by  Him.    In  His  overcoming  alone  can  we  overcome. 


CHAPTER  VI 

JESUS'  ACCOMPLISHMENT   OF  HIS  TASK 

Jesus'  accomplishment  of  His  world-transcending 
task,  under  the  conditions  and  limitations  which  are 
essential  to  it  as  the  central  energy  of  the  task  of 
humanity,  coincides  with  the  progress  of  His  concep- 
tion of  His  Gospel.  For  His  Gospel  is  His  own  inner 
life.  Neither  life-task  nor  evangel  is  complete  at 
the  beginning  of  His  mission.  Both  have  to  be  at- 
tained together,  as  one.  Only  the  especially  important 
elements  of  this  process  can  be  touched  upon  here, 
and  they  very  briefly. 

Jesus'  first  announcement  of  His  Gospel  was  in 

substance,    "Repent:   for   the   Kingdom   of   God   is 

at  hand."     We  are  to  trace  first  the  deepening  of 

the  meaning  of  His  demand  of  Repentance,  and  then 

the  significance  of  His  promise  of  the  speedy  coming 

of  the  kingdom  of  God.    The  former  is  the  condition 

of  the  enjoyment  of  the  latter.    The  kingdom  is  to 

come  both  for  judgment  and  redemption.     It  will 

bring  redemption  only  to  those  who  repent.      The 

word  translated  repent  clearly  denotes  a  complete 

242 


JESUS'  TASK  243 

change  of  conduct  and  inner  life.     How  did  Jesus 
conceive  that  change  which  he  demanded? 

To  Jesus,  born  under  the  law,  its  faithful  disciple 
to  the  last,  the  repentance  to  which  God  offered 
the  benefits  of  His  Kingdom  must  be  the  faithful 
keeping  of  His  law,  the  ancestral  law  of  Israel.  To 
Jesus  the  scribes  sat  in  Moses'  seat.  He  grew  up  as 
the  third  evangelist's  exquisite  story  represents  Him, 
in  docile  and  eager  reverence  toward  the  law  and  its 
expounders.  Yet  His  heart  felt  more  deeply  and  His 
eyes  saw  more  clearly  the  actual  religious  needs  of  the 
lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel;  and  in  Him,  handi- 
craftsman by  necessity,  man  of  the  people,  grew  the 
perception  that  scribal  amphfications  of  the  law  simply 
could  not  be  kept  by  the  poor.  It  was  a  physical 
impossibility;  no  poor  man  could  observe  all  these 
Pharisaic  restrictions,  bear  these  burdens  too  heavy 
to  be  borne,  and  support  himself  and  his  dependents. 
It  was  a  moral  impossibility;  the  obligations  to  others 
imposed  by  God  could  not  be  transferred  to  God  as 
an  acceptable  sacrifice.  His  must  be  a  Gospel  that 
could  be  preached  to  the  poor.  He  must  seek  and 
save  the  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel.  Not  the 
keeping  of  the  elaborate  additions  to  the  law  would 
make  the  impending  kingdom  salvation  and  not  judg- 
ment.   But  the  repentance  to  a  righteousness  accessi- 


244        THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

ble  to  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men,  and  which 
makes  the  impending  catastrophe  blessing,  not  doom, 
must  exceed  the  righteousness  of  the  scribes  and 
Pharisees.  This  exceeding  could  not  be  in  outward 
observance,  but  must  be  in  a  righteousness  whereby 
the  law  is  taken  into  the  inner  life.  "Blessed  are 
the  pure  in  heart,  for  they  shall  see  God,"  in  the  vision 
which  shall  come  with  the  coming  of  the  kingdom. 
The  repentant  change  must  be  to  a  righteousness 
to  which  the  hateful  thought  is  murder,  the  lustful 
glance  adultery,  a  righteousness  which  is  a  new  moral 
creation  in  the  springs  of  life.  Outward  observances 
well-pleasing  to  the  Father  must  be  outflowings  of 
love  to  God  in  all  the  powers  of  heart  and  will  and 
spiritual  energy,  and  to  every  man  that  one  can  neigh- 
bor, as  to  oneself,  especially  to  those  who  cannot 
repay,  and  to  those  by  whom  one  is  hated  and  de- 
spised, for  here  love's  genuineness  has  its  test.  To 
that  righteousness  men  must  turn  in  order  to  receive 
the  blessings  of  the  coming  kingdom. 

Yet  by  one  of  those  inconsistencies  of  Jesus  which 
reveal  to  us  that  His  attainments  were  of  the  task,  to 
which  limitation  and  inconsistency  are  essential,  this 
evangel,  which  is  implicitly  the  transcending  of  legal- 
ism and  the  penetration  of  life  by  a  different  prin- 
ciple, seemed  to  Him  to  be  law's  fulfillment  as  law. 


JESUS'  TASK  245 

Still  the  Mosaic  law  was  law  to  Him,  and  His 
amendments  of  it  were  not  perceived  to  be  its  abroga- 
tion. Still  its  forms  and  ceremonies  remained  in 
force.  It  is  probable  that  He  said  something  like 
this:  "Till  Heaven  and  earth  pass,  not  one  jot  or  one 
tittle  of  the  law  shall  fail  till  all  be  fulfilled,—"  as 
jot  and  tittle. 

Yet  from  His  fundamental  demand  of  repentance 
the  legalistic  limitation  has  in  principle  fallen  away. 
Even  in  the  assertion  of  legal  traditionalism  just 
quoted,  the  words  "Till  Heaven  and  earth  pass"  are 
in  contradiction  to  the  temper  of  His  people,  to  whom 
the  impending  redemption  was  to  be  the  intensifica- 
tion of  the  legal  system.  To  him  every  jot  and  tittle 
of  the  law  were  soon  to  pass,  with  the  inferior  order  to 
which  they  pertained.  The  kingdom  of  God  would 
bring  a  higher  principle,  even  as  its  essential  revelation 
in  His  own  heart  had  transformed  life,  and  must  trans- 
form it  wherever  His  personal  power  should  extend. 
That  He  kept  these  limitations  in  His  own  observance, 
except  when  higher  considerations  obliterated  them, 
and  that  in  His  precepts  He  taught  them,  offering  a 
salvation  transcendent  of  the  law  in  the  name  of  the 
ancient  law  which  He  made  impossible,  manifests 
Jesus  to  us  not  as  external  authority,  but  as  working 
out  in  actual  conditions,  and  in  limitations  of  heredity 


246        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

and  environment,  the  task  that  by  these  things  tran- 
scends them. 

But  this  inner  life  of  renewed  character  must  un- 
fold its  religious  depths,  and  to  this  inner  life,  spirit- 
ually apprehended,  the  blessings  of  the  kingdom  are 
to  be  given.  There  is  no  trace  in  Jesus  of  a  separation 
between  morality  and  religion.  But  with  the  deepen- 
ing of  the  ethical  and  spiritual  into  holy  love  to  God 
and  man,  the  unity  is  more  deeply  conceived.  The 
life  that  dispenses  itself  to  men  in  sacrificial  service 
ascends  to  the  Father  in  a  child's  devotion.  These  are 
not  two  currents,  but  one  flood.  But  to  the  religious 
consciousness  of  Jesus  nothing  good  goes  from  man 
to  God  which  has  not  first  come  from  God  to  man. 
Therefore  all  that  is  offered  to  God  and  to  man  as  to 
God  can  aim  at  nothing  lower  than  its  source  and  es- 
sential quality,  even  God's  perfectness,  which  is  most 
practically  conceived  as  His  mercy,  forgiveness,  and 
love  to  our  fellowmen,  His  children.  It  is  this  right- 
eousness which  is  to  win  the  joy  of  the  Kingdom, 
rendering  the  impending  catastrophe  not  doom  but 
blessing.  But  this  righteousness,  being  unto  God,  is 
from  Him.  It  is  a  righteousness  of  faith,  not  in  the 
forensic  sense,  not  as  an  external  and  mediated  grace, 
but  in  a  relation  to  God  most  vitally  and  personally 
ethical. 


JESUS'  TASK  247 

Here  we  have  the  attainment  of  Jesus '  ultimate  de- 
mand upon  the  human  soul.  The  faith  into  which 
the  repentance  has  deepened  from  its  legalistic  ap- 
prehension receives  the  blessing  of  the  kingdom  and 
fuses  with  the  spiritual  apprehension  of  the  kingdom. 
The  power  of  this  faith  in  Jesus'  attainment  of  it,  and 
in  His  impartation  of  it,  we  may  see  to  be  the  basal 
energy  of  his  task  and  ours. 

The  very  character  and  spirit  of  God  is  divine 
love's  offer,  even  to  the  most  sinful  who  will  receive 
it.  The  lost  son  throws  himself  upon  the  Father's 
heart  in  contrition  without  a  claim.  The  child  for- 
given and  restored  lives  in  the  Father's  house  in  stead- 
fast confidence  of  the  Father's  care  and  in  loyal  accept- 
ance of  the  Father's  will.  Even  the  basest  receive 
this  Gospel  into  hearts  which  it  changes,  into  lives 
which  it  renews.  The  woman  that  was  a  sinner  washes 
her  Saviour's  feet  with  her  tears  and  wipes  them  with 
her  hair,  for  in  His  holy  love  the  holy  love  of  the  Father 
has  come  even  to  her.  The  thought  of  merit  and  re- 
ward is  obliterated.  The  legalistic  impediments  fall 
away  from  the  religion  of  Jesus,  which  has  become  the 
pure  and  consummate  religion  of  redemption.  Re- 
pentance, its  condition,  has  deepened  into  the  life  of 
faith,  faith  dependently  receptive  and  inwardly  ener- 
gized by  the  perfect  holiness  and  love,  our  Father. 


248        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

This  faith  is  for  every  man.  It  is  saving  faith  for 
the  unfallen,  the  sinless,  no  less  than  for  the  vilest. 
It  is  faith  independent  of  varieties  of  religious  ex- 
perience. It  belongs  to  the  Pauline  type  no  more  than 
to  other  types.  The  man  driven  frantic  by  curse  of 
unforgiven  sin,  miserably  aware  of  the  law  of  death 
in  his  members,  and  the  calmly  aspirational  soul, 
with  consciousness  of  moral  dignity,  to  whom  things 
good  and  true  are  natural,  find  themselves  together 
in  this  faith.  The  purity  of  womanhood,  the  innocence 
of  childhood,  every  nobility  as  well  as  every  sinfulness, 
accept  God's  grace  with  equal  humility  without  a 
claim,  even  as  Jesus  did,  and  to  this  faith,  in  all  sorts 
and  conditions  of  believers,  is  revealed  the  holiness  of 
the  Father  and  the  misery  and  horror  of  sin.  This 
faith  is  not  conditioned  by  the  need  of  forgiveness, 
though  it  brings  to  light  every  moral  evil  within  us, 
however  deeply  concealed;  and  as  we  sinful  men 
humbly  accept  God's  free  mercy,  there  comes  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  pardon  which  is  all  peace,  all  recon- 
ciliation, the  welcome  of  the  lost  into  the  Father's 
house,  new  life  from  the  dead,  in  the  love  of  the 
Father's  heart.  Yet  this  faith  must  ever  be  the 
essential  in  unfoldings  of  holy  life  beyond  our  earthly 
premonitions.  It  is  faith  of  the  sinful  woman;  it  is 
faith  of  the  Master  who  bade  her  go  in  peace,  forgiven, 


JESUS'  TASK  249 

saved.  It  is  faith  for  all  His  brethren,  because  it  is 
the  faith  of  which  He  is  author  and  perfecter.  It  is 
the  energy  of  His  task  and  ours. 

Christianity  must  return  to  Jesus'  faith  from  all 
lower  faiths,  thus  appropriating  whatever  these  lower 
faiths  have  to  disclose  of  apphcations  and  outworkings 
of  His  faith.  Christianity  must  rise  from  the  faith  of 
Paul  to  the  faith  of  Jesus,  from  faith  in  Jesus 'death, 
as  a  postulate  of  salvation,  to  faith  in  the  divine  salva- 
tion itself,  which  is  faith  in  God  Himself,  and  which  is 
most  profoundly  realized  by  the  faith  in  which  Jesus 
died.  The  Pauline  faith  finds  its  own  nature  when  it 
sweeps  away  every  intermediary  between  God  and 
man,  between  God  coming  to  save  and  the  soul  di- 
rectly accepting  His  forgiving  mercy.  There  is  for 
every  disciple  of  Jesus  His  own  direct  access  to  the 
Father. 

This  faith,  wrought  out  in  Jesus '  transcendent  con- 
quest of  the  world  by  the  spiritual  manhood  which 
is  God's  very  life  in  Him,  makes  Him  the  source  and 
center  of  the  new  humanity,  which  is  of  His  faith's 
creation.  His  life-task  of  faith  is  supreme  life-task  for 
us  all,  and  gives  life  to  mankind.  To  accept  the  faith 
of  Jesus  is  most  real  acceptance  of  faith  in  Jesus,  for  in 
His  faith  He  is  our  Saviour.  Every  element  of  Jesus' 
task,  wrought  in  faith,  including  His  limitations  of 


2  5©        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

thought  and  teaching  and  deed,  belongs  in  the  source 
and  center  of  the  new  humanity.  His  cross,  where  He 
finished  faith's  earthly  task  that  was  given  Him  to  do, 
is,  in  a  sense  not  speculative,  dogmatic,  unethically 
mystical,  but  in  a  significance  altogether  real,  moral 
and  spiritual,  the  indispensable  power  of  humanity's 
task  of  world-transcending  realization  in  God. 

This  overcoming  faith  goes  out  in  exclusive  desire 
to  the  salvation  which  God  ofTers.  It  is  hunger  and 
thirst.  It  agonizes  for  the  highest  good.  All  other 
desires  are  annulled  by  it.  A  man  sells  all  that  he 
hath  for  this  discovered  treasure,  this  pearl  of  great 
price.  One's  own  life  weighs  nothing  against  it.  The 
soul  detaches  itself  from  every  lower  good,  from 
every  purpose  which  is  not  this  supreme  spiritual 
end,  and  from  its  own  life,  in  recognition  that  only  in 
its  own  deeper  life  can  it  find  itself.  Yet  these  inten- 
sities are  sane  and  normal,  because  ethical.  Whatever 
physical  excitements  or  nervous  extravagancies  may 
be  aroused  with  them  fall  away,  leaving  the  inten- 
sities of  a  steadfast  mind.  The  faintest  beginnings  of 
this  faith  are  recognized  and  fostered  by  Jesus,  in  the 
all-comprehending  tenderness  of  the  Father,  not  as 
substitutes  for  the  faith  that  conquers  all  things,  but 
because  the  weakest  faith  is  of  a  latent  omnipotence 
comparable  to  the  growths  implicit  in  the  least  of  all 


JESUS'  TASK  251 

seeds.  The  bruised  reed  is  not  broken,  for  the  all- 
healing  life-power  is  in  it.  The  smoking  wick  is  not  ex- 
tinguished, but  nursed  into  flame  and  illumination. 
Even  to  these  beginnings  power  is  accessible  for  the 
utmost  of  self-renunciation  and  appropriation  of  the 
spiritual  universe.  The  supreme  good  which  faith  de- 
sires inspires  faith  increasingly.  The  appeal  is  of  one's 
spiritual  self  coming  to  itself.  The  proffered  good  is 
the  heavenly  Father's  care,  the  Father's  heart,  the 
Father's  holy  love,  all  as  inner  possessions.  This 
good  is  purely  ethical,  as  God  is  the  alone  good.  It  is 
ethical  life  consummately  spiritual,  God's  holy  love- 
life,  God  himself  offering  all  that  perfection  can  offer 
to  the  trust  of  His  child. 

This  hungering  and  thirsting,  seeking,  striving,  is 
yet  just  the  reception  of  that  which  God  gives.  There 
is  no  inconsistency  here.  Jesus  is  not  inconsistent  in 
the  depths  of  His  religious  consciousness.  The  blessing 
of  the  Kingdom  is  bestowed  by  that  which  is  absolutely 
above  ourselves,  the  perfect  from  the  Perfect,  the  in- 
exhaustible from  the  Infinite,  and  then  the  unfathom- 
able good  rises  from  depths  of  our  own  spiritual  being, 
which  have  now  become  aware  that  all  their  springs 
are  in  God.  From  mere  grace  and  mercy,  rather  out 
of  love  and  fatherhood,  God  gives  His  own  holiness, 
love,  and  blessedness.    All  our  awakened  longings  cul- 


252        THE  CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

minate,  when,  like  a  little  child  oblivious  of  every- 
thing but  the  thing  it  wants,  we  hold  out  our  hands, 
open  our  hearts,  to  receive  the  supreme  good  as  it  can 
only  be  received,  in  the  faith  of  a  little  child.  Every 
condition  except  the  simple  receptiveness  of  faith 
disappears.  Every  possibility  of  human  desert  or 
merit  is  done  away.  Jesus  claims  none  for  Himself. 
He  receives  the  Kingdom  of  God  as  a  little  child. 
The  gift  is  wholly  of  God  who  gives.  Our  part  is  to 
receive,  becoming  as  httle  children  with  our  faith's 
author  and  perfecter.  So  we  enter  the  Kingdom  of 
God,  and  keep  there  the  child's  trusting  heart. 

Jesus'  faith  is  the  acceptance  of  the  Father's 
will  in  every  allotment,  it  is  the  enduring  of  every 
test,  the  conquering  of  every  temptation,  and  the 
accomplishment  of  every  redemptive  mission.  All 
things  that  we  ought  to  do  become  the  accord  of 
man's  will  with  God's  will.  So  with  the  duties  which 
must  pass,  as  faith  works  itself  out  of  their  range, 
such  as  faithful  observance  of  the  Jewish  law,  ac- 
cepted as  God's  requirement;  so  with  duties  which 
belong  to  abnormal  conditions,  as  duties  of  the  slave, 
the  oppressed;  so  with  duties  of  individual  limitation, 
of  mistake  and  ignorance.  These  docilities  are  one 
in  nature  with  the  enfranchised  service  of  spirits 
that  stand  before  God's  throne,  with  clear  comprehen- 


JESUS'  TASK  253 

si  on  of  His  design.  All  unfoldings  of  the  new  divine 
life  are  in  the  faith  which  is  nothing  less  than  spiritual 
manhood  fulfilling  itself  in  the  infinite  Spirit. 

This  faith  accomphshes  itself  in  the  battle  and 
conquest  of  the  world.  Here  in  the  world  is  its  task 
of  self-attainment.  It  is  a  world-destroying  faith, 
the  unconditional  renunciation  of  that  which  has 
been,  or  else  would  be,  the  heart's  desire.  Daily  it 
stands  with  loins  girded,  to  take  up  the  cross,  to 
follow  the  Master  of  the  spiritual  life  to  the  utter- 
most of  pain  and  shame.  In  all  circumstances  this 
readiness  is  profifered,  and  every  element  of  life  is 
brought  within  this  renunciation.  It  is  world-tran- 
scending faith.  The  lower  good  drops  from  the  hand 
that  grasps  the  supreme  worth.  The  loss  of  life  finds 
life  and  keeps  it.  The  rejection  of  the  world  is  exultant 
joy  of  the  hidden  treasure  discovered,  the  incompar- 
able pearl  one's  own.  Every  element  of  life  is  trans- 
formed into  the  spiritual.  In  and  from  and  against 
the  world,  humanity  gains  that  one  precious  thing, 
its  own  soul;  gains  it  in  consecration  and  devotion, 
as  the  will  of  the  father,  the  life  of  the  Eternal. 

The  command.  Repent,  and  the  promise  of  the 
impending  kingdom  of  God,  fuse  together;  as  the 
former  becomes  more  than  a  condition  of  the  promise, 
and  realizes  itself  as  the  inner  life  of  faith,  beyond 


2  54        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

which  God's  supreme  promise  cannot  pass;  and  as 
the  good  that  is  promised  becomes  the  blessedness 
of  the  inner  life.  Turning  now  to  the  consideration 
of  Jesus'  announcement  of  the  kingdom  of  God, 
we  may  see  from  this  side  also,  that  Jesus,  in  His 
personal  realization  of  the  kingdom,  is  source  and 
center  of  the  new  humanity.  This  new  creation  is  by 
His  accomplishment  of  the  human  task  of  the  tran- 
scendent world-conquest.  We  may  expect  to  find  in 
His  realization  of  the  kingdom  of  God  greater  in- 
consistencies than  are  contained  in  His  command  to 
repent,  inconsistencies  that  transform  the  burning 
hopes  of  His  people,  which  were  most  intense  in  His 
loyal  heart,  into  the  spirit's  self-attainings. 

The  kingdom  of  God,  at  hand,  impending,  con- 
notes another  kingdom,  present,  governed  by  the 
opposite  principle,  and  ruled  by  God's  archenemy. 
Neither  kingdom  can  endure  admixture  of  the  other. 
The  good  comes  as  transcendent  catastrophe,  to 
sweep  away  the  evil.  The  kingdom  of  God  is  not  yet 
here:  it  will  come  soon  and  suddenly.  The  kingdom 
of  Satan  is  here :  yet  a  little  while  and  it  shall  not  be. 
Men  are  not  called  to  work  or  to  fight  for  the  divine 
kingdom.  Though  it  may  come  more  speedily  for 
prayers  and  keeping  of  the  law,  it  is  for  God  to  send, 
and  men  must  watch  for  it. 


JESUS'   TASK  255 

From  the  variegated  and  discordant  Jewish  ex- 
pectations of  the  day  of  the  Lord,  when  God's  reign 
and  kingdom  should  burst  upon  the  earth  out  of 
Heaven,  the  hope  which  had  most  appealed  to  Jesus 
is  not  represented  by  fantastic  dreams  of  grandeur 
nor  by  volcanic  outbursts  of  hate  against  Roman 
usurpation.  In  the  hearts  of  the  lowly,  among  whom 
Jesus  was  born,  the  hope  of  Israel's  redemption  took 
such  forms  as  are  expressed  in  the  lyrics  of  the  open- 
ing of  the  Third  Gospel: 

"That  we  being  delivered  from  fear  under  the  hands 

of  our  enemies, 
May  serve  Him  in  holiness  and  righteousness 
In  His  presence  every  day  of  our  lives, 
Because  of  the  merciful  heart  of  our  God, 
By  whose  compassions  the  dayspring  from  on  high 

shall  visit  us. 
To   shine  upon   us   sitting  in  darkness   and   death 

shadow. 
To  make  firm  our  feet  along  the  way  of  peace." 

Out  of  the  moral  and  religious  hope  of  those  who 
indulged  no  dreams  of  empire,  and  were  ambitious 
for  no  conditions  beyond  those  favorable  to  righteous- 
ness and  holiness  and  undisturbed  service  of  their 
fathers'  God,  Jesus  poured  the  beatitudes  of  the 
kingdom,  upon  hungry,  suffering,  oppressed  bodies 


256        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

and  hearts,  that  asked  only  for  the  deliverance  which 
is  suitable  to  meek  lovers  and  makers  of  peace. 

The  expectation  of  Jesus,  as  reported  even  in  the 
earliest  sources,  has  been  so  overlaid  with  the  re- 
flections and  imaginations  of  the  early  church,  that  it 
would  seem  impossible  to  recover  His  thought  were 
it  not  for  one  clarifying  phenomenon:  that  of  the 
frequent  representation  of  His  evident  confidence 
in  the  immediate  coming  of  the  kingdom.  We  may 
never  be  able  to  distinguish  completely  Jesus'  own 
sayings  from  later  apocalyptic  fragments,  whose  in- 
trusion is  suspected  upon  many  pages  of  the  Synoptic 
Gospels.  Yet  criticism  has  corrected  the  hoary 
error  that  Jesus  expected  the  consummation  ages 
away,  while  the  early  church  looked  for  it  soon.  He 
anticipating  a  process  of  evolution,  His  followers  a 
catastrophe.  On  the  contrary,  He  sends  His  disciples 
through  Israel,  warning  them  away  from  Samaria 
and  the  Gentile  settlements  of  the  Holy  Land,  spurring 
them  on,  lest  the  Kingdom  of  God  should  overtake 
them  before  this  mission  is  accomplished,  and  should 
surprise  a  people  unwarned.  And  when  the  expe- 
rience of  His  Galilean  ministry  compelled  the  Son  of 
Man,  in  the  mysterious  purpose  of  God,  to  the  moral 
necessity  of  suffering  and  dying  before  He  might 
come  victorious,  as  the  prophet  had  foretold,  there 


JESUS'  TASK  257 

is  no  radical  change  of  anticipation.  We  may  picture 
Him  as  the  Gospels  represent  Him,  with  His  face 
steadfast  toward  Jerusalem,  and  straitened  in  spirit 
until  He  should  accomplish  the  baptism  which  was 
to  establish  Him  on  the  right  hand  of  Power  and  to 
bring  Him  in  the  clouds  of  Heaven. 

All  that  is  attributed  to  Him  of  prediction  of  delay 
between  His  death  and  the  kingdom's  triumph  is 
evidently  not  from  Him.  Protracted  intermission 
between  His  first  and  second  comings,  intercalation 
of  the  Anti-christ,  postponements  to  allow  this  or 
that  event  first  to  come  to  pass,  have  other  origins. 
The  New  Testament  apocalyptic  in  general  is  not  so 
much  announcement  of  the  end,  as  explanation  of  its 
repeated  postponement,  till  the  exhausted  apology 
betakes  itself  to  the  grandiose  impertinence,  that  one 
day  is  with  the  Lord  as  a  thousand  years.  With  the 
hope  deferred  there  increased  in  many  currents  of  the 
early  church  chiliasms,  sensationalisms,  materialisms, 
and  mythologies,  which  are  none  of  His,  though  in- 
evitably tending  to  be  attributed  to  Him.  His  own 
hope,  however  held  and  expressed  in  the  forms  of 
His  day,  was  undiminished  to  the  last,  notwithstand- 
ing His  deepening  thought  of  the  kingdom,  because 
His  expectation  was  consistent  with  the  kingdom's 
nature  as  He   conceived  it,   its  world-transcending 


258        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

and  world-destroying  spirituality.  Therefore  there 
increased  in  Him  to  the  last,  the  vivid  hope  and  the 
passionate  urgency  of  the  impending  glory  and  doom 
of  the  kingdom  of  God  at  hand.  Thus  were  intensified 
in  Jesus  those  fundamental  elements  of  the  Jewish 
eschatology  which  were  common  to  most  of  the  differ- 
ent forms  and  shades  of  it.  It  was  to  be  catastrophic; 
there  was  no  place  for  the  secular  processes  of  social 
evolution  to  which  we  moderns  look  for  the  ameliora- 
tions of  humanity.  It  was  to  be  from  God  alone, 
without  human  cooperation,  save  the  part  which  God 
had  ordained  and  announced  through  prophecy  for 
that  mysterious  intermediary,  the  Son  of  Man.  In 
such  an  expectation  there  might  be  the  most  material 
chiliasms,  yet  such  an  expectation  might  be,  for  a 
true  Semitic  soul,  the  natural  expression  of  the  tran- 
scendent conquest  of  the  world. 

That  the  latter  was  the  result  for  Jesus  is  especially 
indicated  in  two  elements  of  His  anticipation,  both 
characteristic  of  Him.  One  is  His  elimination  of 
the  conditions  of  the  present  age  from  the  impending 
order.  Redeemed  mankind  shall  be  like  the  angels 
in  Heaven.  Such  things  as  wealth  and  secular  ambi- 
tion have  no  place  in  His  exalted  prophecy.  We  must 
interpret  in  the  light  of  this  conviction,  and  of  another 
about  to  be  mentioned,  His  vivid  pictures  of  the  en- 


JESUS'  TASK  259 

franchisements,  joys,  and  triumphs  of  the  new  age, 
though  ever  mindful  of  that  genial  power  of  fantasy 
which  feels  every  imagination  as  a  reality. 

The  other  element  of  His  hope  is  the  fluidity  of  its 
forms.  He  felt  no  need  of  definition.  Whether  He 
meant  by  the  kingdom  of  God  the  rule  of  God  or  the 
object  of  that  rule,  is  a  question  without  an  answer, 
because  the  question  has  no  relation  to  Jesus'  thought. 
Whatever  His  soul  required  for  the  expression  of 
His  deepening  consciousness  of  this  supreme  redemp- 
tion He  afl&rmed  as  God's  own  declaration,  God's 
way  of  accomplishing  His  all-holy  and  all-loving 
will.  Therefore  His  predictions  are  poured  out  with 
no  care  for  consistency.  The  kingdom  shall  come  by 
celestial  energies,  and  by  His  own  power  to  bind  the 
strong  man  and  to  spoil  his  house.  It  shall  flame 
upon  the  world  like  lightning  over  all  the  sky,  and  it  is 
inward  growth  in  the  depths  of  personality  and  from 
man  to  man,  however  brief  the  earthly  scope  of  that 
development.  These  are  irreconcilable  contradictions, 
except  as  they  transform  his  sharings  of  the  popular 
eschatology  into  world-transcending  realization  of  the 
personal  spirit  and  spiritual  humanity. 

He  saw  the  dawning  of  the  kingdom  realized  in  His 
own  victory  over  evil  spirits.  With  the  love  and 
power  of  the  future  glory  already  in  His  heart.  He 


26o        THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

commanded  the  demons  of  insanity,  of  nervous  dis- 
orders (we  do  not  limit  His  physical  cures  to  these 
cases)  of  sin  and  remorse,  to  depart  from  those  whom 
they  tormented,  on  the  sufferer's  fulfillment,  some- 
times hardly  self-conscious,  of  the  conditions  of 
repentance  and  faith  on  which  alone  the  blessings  of 
the  kingdom  could  be  received.  And  to  our  wonder, 
which  is  not  diminished  because  we  interpret  His 
matchless  power  according  to  recognized  psychical 
and  physical  processes,  human  body  and  soul  arose 
whole.  The  rule  of  the  evil  power  in  the  world  was 
evidently  broken.  By  the  finger  of  God  the  strong 
man  has  been  bound,  and  his  house  is  being  spoiled. 
The  ecstatic  in  Jesus,  a  quality  which  we  have  to 
recognize  as  normal  in  Him  and  ourselves,  sees  in 
these  works  of  divine  power  a  universal  reference. 
He  beholds  Satan  as  lightning  fall  from  Heaven.  From 
his  throne  above  the  world  Satan  is  cast  out;  he  is 
no  longer  in  a  position  to  resist  the  celestial  forces 
which  may  now  bring  the  kingdom  of  God  to  earth. 

But  where  the  powers  of  the  kingdom  are,  there  is 
felt  the  presence  of  the  kingdom,  and  these  powers  are 
of  the  divine  Spirit,  which  enables  Jesus  to  cast  out 
demons,  because  it  is  an  indwelling  righteousness  and 
holiness  and  love.  Ever  more  deeply  in  His  own 
heart  and  in  those  who  follow  Him,  there  is  the  reali- 


JESUS'  TASK  261 

zation  of  His  intensest  desires  and  clearest  intuitions 
of  the  kingdom's  supernal  good.  The  righteousness 
that  exceeds  the  righteousness  of  the  scribes  and 
Pharisees;  the  response  of  the  human  soul  to  the 
divine  holiness,  the  pressing  on  to  the  final  aim  of 
perfection  as  our  Father  in  Heaven  is  perfect;  the 
infinite  love  of  the  Father  becoming  love-life  among 
His  children;  the  confession  that  restores  publican 
and  harlot  to  a  child's  place;  the  peace  of  soul  which 
knows  that  nothing  can  be  wanting  in  blessings  least 
and  greatest  under  the  Father's  care;  the  attaining 
of  God's  good  purpose  in  every  life  that  trusts  Him, 
and  sets  itself  to  do  His  will;  man's  devoted,  minis- 
tering sonship  to  the  divine  fatherhood ;  the  confidence 
of  prayer  and  its  unfailing  answer;  the  life  of  the  Father 
in  the  hearts  of  men,  flaming  out  in  irresistible  for- 
giveness, patience,  and  redemptive  passion; — these  are 
the  glories  of  the  kingdom  most  congenial  to  Him, 
these  are  the  infinite  goods  revealed  unto  babes. 
Still  He  looks  forward  to  their  completion  in  the  ca- 
tastrophe of  the  great  day,  and  the  current  forms  of 
the  expectation  continue,  but  are  essentially  trans- 
formed. The  kingdom  of  God  is  His  own  life;  there 
the  kingdom  is  realized.  It  is  the  spiritual  life  of  every 
man  to  whom  He  imparts  it,  and  the  power  of  this  im- 
partation  is  independent  of  place  and  time.     It  is 


262         THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

humanity's  spiritual  life  flowing  from  Him.  It  Ks 
task  and  conquest  in  every  life  and  in  the  life  of  man- 
kind; it  is  task  and  conquest  in  His  life,  with  all  the 
limitations,  conditions  and  accomplishments  of  task 
and  conquest.  The  new  humanity,  of  which  He  is 
source  and  center,  overcomes  the  world.  The  king- 
dom of  the  Spirit,  the  eternal  life  and  blessedness  of 
the  Father,  are  our  inalienable  heritage. 

In  Jesus'  attitude  to  nature  there  is  a  similar  spirit- 
ual transformation  in  ways  less  conscious.  The  world, 
formulated  as  under  the  dominion  of  evil  spirits,  was 
yet,  by  a  beautiful  anomaly,  God's  world  to  Him. 
Lonely  places,  haunted  by  demons  furious  to  take 
possession  of  a  human  body  and  mind,  were  shrines 
of  His  all-night  prayers,  who  has  consecrated  every 
solitude  with  the  consciousness  of  the  Father's  pres- 
ence. All  nature's  life  and  beauty  are  in  the  care  of 
the  almighty  tenderness  which  reveals  in  them  the 
grace  of  God  to  His  human  children.  No  pain  or 
death  in  nature  is  apart  from  the  Father  and  His 
purpose  of  universal  love. 

We  are  reminded  of  the  modern  sense  of  duality  in 
the  natural  world,  which  is  the  scene  of  incessant 
struggle  for  existence,  the  domain  of  force  and  raven- 
ing, overwhelming  us  by  its  all-destroying  mechanism, 
but  which  is  the  world  of  the  Barbizon  painters,  of 


JESUS'  TASK  263 

Chaucer's  joyousness,  of  Shelley's  rapture.  This  antin- 
omy has  always  existed  and  will  continue,  that  man 
may  not  be  satisfied  with  the  glory  of  nature,  but  may 
gain  a  higher  glory  from  it.  To  learn  the  reconcilia- 
tions of  nature  with  the  human  soul,  and  its  consum- 
mations in  the  splendor  and  beauty  of  human  life,  we 
must  sit  at  Jesus '  feet,  that  we  may  resolve  the  prob- 
lems in  forms  which  He  did  not  conceive,  for  masteries 
of  our  own  attaining,  but  learning  from  Him  that 
spirit  may  not  seek  any  ends  in  the  lower  order,  while 
from  the  Hlies  of  the  field,  from  the  defensive  wings 
of  a  sacrificial  natural  motherhood,  from  the  moun- 
tains whose  secret  Jesus  discovered,  loveliness  and 
majesty  are  won  by  the  spirit  for  its  own  unfoldings, 
where  the  sensuous  is  transformed.  Facing  nature 
in  its  most  intractable  oppositions  also,  humanity 
attains  itself  by  the  same  spiritual  powers,  for  the 
same  spiritual  ends.  Through  the  whole  range  of 
man's  relation  to  the  natural  order  sweeps  this  trans- 
formation. Here  is  no  Aryan  appropriation  and  com- 
pletion of  the  world  as  world,  yet  every  Aryan  devel- 
opment of  insight,  skill,  and  art  finds  here  its  freest 
exercise  and  highest  service. 

Even  in  human  life,  life  of  evil  men  crushed  by 
malign  powers  in  an  evil  world,  there  is  yet  reflected 
to  Jesus  from  every  natural  relation  and  normal 


264        THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

activity  the  innermost  excellence  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God.  His  intuition  that  trusts  and  loves  humanity 
must  work  out  in  us  our  tremendous  social  problems. 
He  recognized  man  as  in  spite  of  all  a  spiritual  being, 
innately  transcendent  of  the  lower  order.  His  in- 
creasing failure  to  win  His  fellow-countrymen  in- 
creased His  appreciation  of  latent  human  worth,  as 
such  experiences  are  wont  to  do  in  generous  souls. 
Looking  deeper  than  Paul  into  mankind's  sin  and  loss, 
He  sees  no  need  of  adoption  into  sonship  to  the  Father. 
Salvation  is  just  a  man's  coming  to  himself,  his  dis- 
covery that  he  is  a  child  of  God. 

Doctrines  current  in  His  day,  of  the  absence  or 
alienation  of  a  spiritual  nature,  of  a  human  fall  and 
depravity  that  requires  a  regeneration  formulated 
according  to  these  postulates,  are  foreign  to  Him. 
His  demand  of  human  renewal  He  does  not  formulate 
as  a  new  birth.  A  man  is  to  be  led  not  out  of  himself, 
but  into  himself,  not  beyond  the  gates  of  Hfe,  but  back 
to  the  little  child.  To  Jesus'  appeal  to  the  truly 
natural  man  our  nature  responds  more  than  to  Paul 
and  the  Fourth  Evangelist,  and  the  resulting  convic- 
tion of  sin  is  both  saner  and  deeper  than  that  which 
they  excite.  Nor  is  the  imperative  that  a  man  return 
to  his  real  spiritual  self  less  arduous.  Artificial  religious 
experience  can  be  made  to  order  by  scores  of  current 


JESUS'  TASK  265 

devices.  But  the  naturalness  of  the  spiritual  must  be 
sought  in  the  depths  of  us,  and  the  way  is  beset  with 
innumerable  intrusions  of  the  world  into  the  inner 
life.  Everything  in  the  childlike  spirit  is  congenial  to 
Him,  who  loved  manhood  unsophisticated,  life  un- 
spoiled by  artificial  wants,  ambitions,  and  distrac- 
tions. Jesus  Himself  is  man  in  his  naturalness,  simply 
what  the  Father  would  have  His  child  be.  This  is  no 
sentimentalizing  over  the  child  or  undeveloped  con- 
ditions of  human  life,  but  the  recognition  that  the 
spiritual  is  supremely  natural  to  every  man.  Not 
that  the  spirit  finds  its  purpose  in  the  normal  condi- 
tions and  natural  relations  of  life  in  the  world,  but 
from  these  it  realizes  itself.  Here  is  the  charm  and 
power  of  the  parables,  charm  in  depicting  the  natural 
human,  power  to  complete  it  in  the  attainment  of  soul. 
And  the  same  power  gains  from  human  miseries  and 
oppressions  the  spirit  of  man. 

He  came  as  a  Jew  to  the  Jews,  conscious  of  no 
mission  beyond  them.  No  quality  of  Jesus  is  more 
obvious  than  His  patriotism.  Christianity  has  mis- 
represented Him,  in  so  conceiving  His  universal  ref- 
erence as  to  obscure  His  fixed  devotion  to  His  own 
people.  In  none  of  its  perversities  has  dogmatism 
outraged  wholesome  impulses  more  deeply.  The  last 
full  measure  of  devotion  to  country  is  one  with  His 


266        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

devotion  who  laid  down  His  life  in  faithful  ministry 
to  His  own  people.  Essential  to  His  hfe-task  of  new- 
creating  spiritual  manhood  in  all  its  elements,  was  His 
attainment,  for  Himself  and  all  men,  of  that  patriotism 
of  spiritual  ends  and  passion,  in  which  love  of  country 
is  consummated.  His  ambition  for  His  nation  was 
that  the  kingdom  of  God  might  be  established  in  it, 
that  His  people  might  possess  the  Hfe  of  the  spirit, 
that  every  energy  among  them  might  work  to  the 
forming  of  that  spiritual  unity  of  personalities  which 
is  a  people's  real  life.  By  what  means  the  task  shall 
be  wrought  out  for  other  nations  in  other  times,  is  a 
problem  with  continually  new  conditions.  But  the 
national  ambitions  must  be  those  which  He  set  before 
His  own  people,  and  the  means  of  their  attainment 
must  be  so  purely  directed  to  His  goal  that  nothing 
aUen  to  Him  shall  be  able  to  infect  them. 

Cosmopohtanism  is  the  outgrowth  of  patriotism. 
It  is  formed  in  love  of  country,  but  only  on  the  condi- 
tion that  love  of  country  pursues  His  aims.  Other 
national  tendencies  enkindle  international  jealousies, 
oppressions,  and  wholesale  massacres.  Jesus'  pa- 
triotism lifts  every  citizen  into  that  national  conscious- 
ness which  is  world-wide  spiritual  brotherhood,  and 
develops  each  national  Ufe  in  its  integrity,  that  it 
may  fulfill  itself  in  spiritual  service  to  mankind. 


JESUS'  TASK  267 

It  is  in  this  sense  that  the  current  conception  must 
be  revised,  that  Jesus'  mission  to  His  own  people 
addressed  them  not  as  Jews,  but  as  men.  To  His 
mission  to  Israel  as  Israel  He  was  faithful  to  the  last. 
The  unfolding  of  His  universaHsm  in  that  mission  has 
left  significant  traces  in  the  Gospels.  There  is  His 
amazed  confusion  at  a  Gentile's  faith,  the  like  of  which 
He  had  not  seen  in  Israel,  There  is  His  resourceless  re- 
joinder to  the  Syrophenician  woman,  which  indicates, 
not  the  Jew's  scorn  of  the  Gentile,  but  the  devastating 
inner  conflict  between  His  restricted  mission  and  His 
unlimited  compassion.  He  would  not  exceed  the  field 
wliich  His  Father  had  assigned  Him  and  with  which 
His  activities  were  wholly  occupied.  Yet  just  this 
mission  to  Israel  contained  the  universal  reference 
which  His  greatest  apostle  recognized,  in  opposition 
to  the  eleven  whose  vision  was  restricted  by  their 
personal  knowledge  of  their  Master's  self-limitations. 
Jesus'  restrictions  of  action  were  not  repressions  of 
universal  love  and  hope  and  prayer.  In  these  He  was 
at  one  with  that  infinite  compassion,  which  in  ways 
beyond  His  direct  participation  or  power  to  forecast, 
would  bring  God's  children  from  East  and  West 
and  North  and  South,  to  recline  at  the  eternal  festi- 
val in  fellowship  with  the  noblest  representatives  of 
Israel.    And  at  the  impending  judgment,  from  which 


268        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

Jesus'  ethical  demands  and  consciousness  of  the  sig- 
nificance of  human  life  could  not  omit  any  man  or 
nation  of  the  present  or  the  past,  God  will  judge  Tyre, 
Sidon,  Sodom,  the  men  of  Nineveh,  the  Queen  of  the 
South,  by  the  all-comprehending  divine  righteous- 
ness. There  is  no  respect  of  peoples  with  God. 
Heathen  men  who  have  never  seen  Jesus'  face  shall  be 
welcomed  into  the  kingdom  prepared  from  the  founda- 
tion of  the  world  for  the  blessed  of  His  Father,  because 
they  have  poured  out  love  and  service  to  humanity's 
glorious  King  in  the  person  of  the  least  of  his  brethren. 
This  alone  is  a  meaning  characteristic  of  Jesus,  how- 
ever confused  in  the  evangelist's  telling.  Just  this 
faithfulness  of  Jesus  to  the  national  limitations  of  His 
task  makes  Him  source  and  center  of  the  new-created 
spiritual  devotion  to  country  and  mankind. 

Jesus'  universalism  is  contained  in  His  spirituality. 
To  enter  that  renewed  humanity  universal,  it  is  nec- 
essary to  grasp  Jesus'  conception  of  manhood  in  its 
world-transcending  task,  and  to  make  every  thought 
and  act  the  furtherance  of  His  aim.  In  this  conscious- 
ness is  organized  the  unlimited  brotherhood.  The 
divine  fatherhood  fills  each  child  with  God's  own  love 
to  all  the  children  of  the  Father.  God's  union  with 
our  spirits  empowers  each  to  be  imparter  of  His  love 
to  every  other,  receptive  of  it  from  every  other.    From 


JESUS'   TASK  269 

all  others  every  personality  is  to  attain  something  of 
its  own,  and  all  these  receptions  and  impartations 
make  each  man  a  more  personalized  center  of  spiritual 
being.  All  men  must  be  sought  for  this  universal  life 
of  the  spirit,  as  God  seeks,  forgiven  as  God  forgives. 
The  last  and  least  man  is  essential  to  every  renewed 
soul.  From  the  united  humanity  formed  by  Christ 
not  one  of  its  elements  must  be  lacking.  No  estrange- 
ment is  permitted  in  His  brotherhood,  and  every 
service  must  be  rendered  as  a  function  of  the  supreme 
service.  The  all-personalizing,  all-embracing  love, 
our  Father,  beats  in  the  whole,  making  the  universal 
life  individual;  beats  in  each,  making  the  individual 
life  universal.  This  eternal  bond  is  ethical,  not  monis- 
tic or  mystical  in  any  sense  that  obscures  the  ethical. 
In  the  unity  every  person  comes  to  his  infinite  personal 
value.  The  spiritual  unity  of  mankind  is  the  su- 
premely ethical  task. 

The  essential  of  Jesus'  social  ethic  needs  no  modi- 
fication. It  is  an  ethic  whose  one  purpose  is  the  reali- 
zation of  spirit  in  the  world-transcending  conquest. 
It  is  not  the  ethic  of  world-appropriation.  It  has  no 
aim  in  that  realm.  The  alternative  is  always  the 
spirit  or  the  world.  Every  impulse  that  stops  in 
the  world  is  evil.  No  element  of  the  Aryan  ethic 
continues  in  force  except  as  it  denies  itself,  transforms 


270        THE    CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

itself  into  the  purpose  to  win  in  and  from  and  against 
the  lower  order,  for  a  universal  possession,  the  dis- 
covered treasure,  the  pearl  of  great  price.  The  primal 
ethical  imperative  is  to  choose  the  ethic  of  Jesus 
against  every  other.  Its  severity  is  appalling,  repel- 
lent, impossible,  till  one  sees  its  practicable  simplicity. 
Jesus'  command  is  as  revolutionary  as  His  Gospel, 
being  one  with  it. 

How  far  the  traditions  of  the  ethic  of  Jesus,  which 
are  received  from  the  Synoptic  Gospels  especially, 
represent  His  undeniable  purpose,  is  a  legitimate 
question.  Whether  modifications  of  His  precepts 
need  to  be  made  because  of  historic  changes,  for  the 
transcendent  world-conquest,  is  an  inquiry  made 
necessary  by  the  ethic  itself,  which  is  not  an  external 
law  but  the  self-realization  of  spirit  in  its  freedom.  It 
is  one  thing  to  amend  Jesus  by  a  principle  alien  to 
Him :  it  is  the  opposite  procedure  to  unfold  His  ethic 
from  the  very  essential  of  Him.  The  former  course 
incurs  humanity's  bitterest  disillusion,  makes  ship- 
wreck of  the  task  of  civilization.  His  way  fulfills 
the  passion  for  humanity  and  brings  to  humanity's 
unutterable  groanings  and  travailings  the  redemption 
which  is  the  liberty  of  the  glory  of  the  sons  of  God. 

The  new  humanity  fulfills  itself  in  arduous  and 
lowly  ministries.     Whatever  makes  the  least  pain 


JESUS'  TASK  271 

less,  the  humblest  gladness  more,  is  its  passion,  as 
much  as  large  service  to  the  deepest  needs  of  men. 
It  is  gentleness  and  courtesy,  sympathy  of  sorrow  and 
fellowship  of  joy,  as  well  as  toil,  endurance,  and  sacri- 
fice to  the  uttermost.  It  is  all  these  not  by  natural 
impulse,  though  it  transforms  this  into  its  service, 
but  because  they  whom  it  serves  are  spiritual  beings, 
for  whom  every  enfranchisement  and  enrichment  of 
life  works  out  a  spiritual  end,  so  that  these  ministries 
are  spontaneities  of  the  supreme  love.  This  service 
is  given  to  whatsoever  has  life,  in  lower  phases  of 
undeveloped  being,  for  no  life  that  God  has  made 
is  apart  from  Him  and  from  us  who  live  in  Him. 
There  is  every  sacrifice  to  spiritual  good;  there  is  no 
concession  of  spiritual  good  for  any  consideration. 
That  would  be  unremunerated  loss  of  the  only  value. 
In  our  terrible  social  conflicts,  in  our  social  problems 
else  insoluble,  in  our  stern  individual  tasks  in  whatever 
place  in  the  social  order,  the  one  need  of  our  time  is 
that  we  work  for  spiritual  manhood  solely  and  always, 
in  the  thought  and  by  the  power  of  Jesus.  The  intru- 
sion of  a  lower  aim  defeats  even  the  lower  good  it 
seeks.  For  universal  peace,  for  the  conciHations  of 
class  hatreds  and  race  antagonisms,  for  normal  con- 
ditions of  life,  healings,  reformations,  ameliorations, 
whether  administered  by  government  and  law,  by 


272        THE  CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

science  and  art,  by  economies  and  industries,  by  keen 
eyes  of  compassion  and  friendly  hands  of  helpfulness, 
Jesus  is  the  one  rational  and  sufficient  energy.  The 
world  known  as  thoroughly  as  science  can  learn  it, 
all  human  powers  developed  to  their  utmost,  that  in 
and  from  and  against  the  lower  order,  humanity  re- 
deemed by  Christ  may  find  its  own  soul.  This  is 
revolution  of  modern  life,  every  act  and  all  combina- 
tions of  action  changed  in  quality  and  purpose, 
with  change  outworking  into  every  detail  of  form. 
There  is  nothing  so  inevitably  demanded  by  every 
life-current  of  our  time,  else  to  become  stagnant, 
as  the  world-transcending  Gospel  of  Jesus.  And 
this  Gospel  is  Jesus  Himself  in  His  task,  who  is  faith 
of  our  faith  and  realized  kingdom  of  God. 

We  penetrate  even  more  deeply  the  universal  signif- 
icance of  Jesus  in  His  task,  when,  with  reverent  fear- 
lessness, we  follow  it  into  the  sanctuary  of  His  inner 
conflicts,  where  indeed  are  the  reahzations  of  all 
the  energies  we  receive  from  Him.  Two  elements 
of  this  inner  task  may  be  indicated. 

The  Jewish  Messianic  consciousness  was  forced 
upon  Jesus  by  His  character  and  religious  experience, 
by  the  Baptist's  work  and  prediction,  by  historic 
conditions,  popular  expectations,  by  His  own  com- 
passion and  sense  of  spiritual  power,  and  was  necessa- 


JESUS'  TASK  273 

rily  conceived  by  Him  as  the  direct  call  of  God.  The 
Messianic  title,  Son  of  God,  was  derived  from  Old 
Testament  ideas  of  the  representative  relation  of  the 
king  of  the  chosen  people  to  the  divine  Father  of  the 
people  as  a  whole.  Neither  originally  nor  in  the 
developments  of  Jesus'  thought  has  that  title  any- 
thing in  common  with  its  later  trinitarian  history. 
The  consciousness  of  possessing  that  title  might 
lead,  in  Jesus'  day,  to  such  extravagancies  as  are 
intimated  in  the  story  of  the  temptation, — "If  Thou 
art  the  Son  of  God!"  But  to  Jesus  the  title  and 
the  obligations  it  imposed  unfolded  those  depths  and 
heights  of  spiritual  sonship  to  the  Father,  the  attain- 
ment of  which  is  the  task  of  every  soul,  the  fulfill- 
ment of  humanity.  Vast  the  distance  between  us 
and  His  realization  of  sonship  in  that  obedience, 
trust,  and  sacrifice,  in  that  moral  and  spiritual  union 
with  the  Father,  before  which  all  speculative  con- 
structions of  Jesus'  nature  become  insignificant.  The 
difference  too  great  to  be  called  difference  compels  our 
contrition  before  His  judgment-seat  of  filial  love, 
our  unqualified  dependence  upon  Him,  our  unweary- 
ing aspiration  to  be  like  Him,  and  our  trustful  ac- 
ceptance from  Jesus  of  His  sonship  to  the  Father, 
while  just  by  this  faith  the  Father  is  our  all  in  all.  In 
such  a  sonship  the  significance  of  the  royal  title  is 


274        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

manifest:  this  sonship  exalts  the  soul  above  the  lower 
order,  overcomes  the  world.  Yet  the  supreme  royalty 
of  the  title  remains  His;  for  He  who  has  put  all  things 
under  our  feet  is  king  of  us  all. 

By  this  inner  process,  as  seems  most  probable,  or 
by  another  deeper  than  we  are  able  to  conceive,  was 
wrought  Jesus'  sonship.  The  same  probability  of 
process,  the  same  certainty  of  result,  are  ours,  as  we 
follow  the  inner  life  of  Jesus  through  another  aspect 
of  His  self-consciousness.  The  title,  Son  of  God, 
implies  the  designation,  Son  of  Man,  a  higher  name 
than  the  other  in  the  expectations  of  His  people. 
The  Son  of  Man  is  he  who,  in  the  current  interpreta- 
tions of  Daniel's  prophecy,  is  to  come  from  Heaven 
in  the  Name  of  the  Most  High,  make  an  end  of  this 
world-age,  and  introduce  the  celestial  kingdom.  It 
is  not  necessary  to  describe  the  various  conceptions 
of  the  Son  of  Man  entertained  by  the  contemporaries 
of  Jesus.  To  Him  the  consciousness  of  Messiahship, 
unfolding  in  filial  relation  to  the  Father,  involved 
this  supreme  future  dignity,  whose  attainment  would 
appear  the  only  sufficient  triumph  of  the  Father's 
cause,  as  it  had  been  entrusted  to  His  hands.  Con- 
fident of  the  success  of  His  mission.  He  was  already, 
though  homeless,  rejected,  and  doomed  to  a  shameful 
death,  the  Son  of  Man. 


JESUS'  TASK  275 

His  faith  in  the  divine  purpose  grew  deeper  and 
clearer  with  the  apparent  defeat  of  His  earthly  mis- 
sion. This  faith  was  undaunted  faithfulness  to  His 
calling  and  entire  acceptance  of  the  Father's  will.  The 
prospect  of  the  death  necessitated  by  that  faithful- 
ness, suggested  to  Him  no  expiatory  power  in  His 
final  sufferings.  Both  of  the  reports  of  such  a  dec- 
laration, and  their  parallels,  are,  in  that  interpretation, 
too  accordant  with  later  reflection,  and  too  discordant 
with  His  faith  in  the  Father's  unconditioned  willing- 
ness to  forgive,  to  be  attributed  to  Him.  To  Jesus 
the  way  of  the  cross  led  to  the  immediate  coming 
of  the  exalted  Son  of  Man  in  His  glory.  To  us  His 
death  is  seen  to  be  the  consummated  task  of  faith,  of 
the  inner  achievement  of  God's  kingdom;  it  is  per- 
fected sonship  to  the  Father  and  victory  over  the 
world.  In  this  completion  Jesus  is  complete  source 
and  center  of  humanity's  task  of  realizing  the  spiritual 
life.    The  power  of  redemption  is  eternally  His  cross. 

We  cannot  exclude  here,  least  of  all  here,  any 
element  of  the  task  of  Jesus  from  the  significance 
and  power  of  His  accomplishment.  The  current  su- 
perstitions which  He  accepted,  His  impossible  ex- 
pectations, personal  limitations,  and  conditions  to 
which  He  must  be  subject  as  performing  a  real 
task,  are  among  its  essential  elements,  and  are  taken 


276         THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

up  into  its  realization.  The  Messianic  forms  which 
He  appropriated  and  transcended  were  accomplished 
in  an  evident  transformation.  When  the  world  lay 
conquered  beneath  His  feet  which  had  been  pierced, 
when  it  had  become  possible  for  every  disciple  of 
Jesus  to  say,  "In  Him  I  am  crucified  to  the  world 
and  the  world  is  crucified  to  me,"  when  the  spiritual 
life  of  Jesus  made  heroic  the  panic-stricken  fugitives 
cowering  among  the  GaHlean  hills,  and  flooded  hearts, 
for  which  the  world  were  else  too  strong  to  be  over- 
come, with  power  to  be  more  than  conquerors  through 
Him  that  loved  us,  there  was  fulfillment  before  which 
the  blazonries  of  the  Apocalypse  grow  pale  and  the 
voices  of  its  seven  thunders  die  away. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE   RECONSTRUCTIVE  ENERGIES 

The  power  of  the  transcendent  world-conquest 
radiates  in  all  directions  from  its  center,  Jesus,  to 
fill  the  infinitely  expanding  circumference  of  thought 
and  being,  transforming  all  into  the  spiritual  universe, 
and  vindicating  spirit  as  the  one  reality,  while  spirit 
learns  and  realizes  itself  by  this  overcoming. 

Our  aim  has  been  simply  to  find  the  reconstructive 
energy  of  modern  life,  for  the  problems  and  labors 
that  are  confronting  us.  Now  that  this  purpose  has 
been  accomplished,  though  so  imperfectly,  a  few 
reflections  may  be  made  in  closing:  first,  upon  the 
adequacy  of  this  power  to  fulfill  the  special  obligations 
of  the  present  phase  of  history;  and,  in  the  final 
chapter,  upon  its  applications  to  our  modern  life. 

It  must  be  almighty  power  for  universal  task.  If  it 
were  less  than  almighty  for  the  task,  less  than  univer- 
sal, it  could  not  accomplish  the  least  detail  of  that 
which  is  given  us  to  do.  It  could  not  change  a  single 
hovel  into  a  habitation  fit  for  the  birth  of  a  child  of 

man.     It  could  not  drive  a  single  factory  wheel  to 

277 


278        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

the  production  of  something  worthy  to  minister  to 
human  Kfe.  The  meaning  of  human  hfe  is  revealed 
in  this:  that  nothing  less  than  the  infinite  and  al- 
mighty is  sufficient  for  it  to  work  with.  Man  stand- 
ing beneath  the  implacable  nebulae,  in  his  pinpoint 
of  space,  man  among  the  eons  that  threaten  to  engulf 
his  moment  of  time,  is  overwhelmed,  annihilated; 
until  he  learns  that  everything  he  has  to  work  upon 
demands  the  whole  power  in  and  beyond  and  above 
all  these,  and  he  is  one  with  that  which  fills  and  tran- 
scends them.  If  the  power  which  presents  itself 
as  the  highest  does  not  apply  directly  to  each  ele- 
ment of  human  labor,  it  is  not  of  that  unlimited  suffi- 
ciency. When  simple  men  demand  an  evangel  for 
daily  works  and  needs,  their  requisition  is  the  infinite 
and  eternal.  When  idealists  aspire  after  the  highest, 
it  is  not  the  highest  unless  it  mingles  itself  with  the 
lowliest  drudgery,  which  it  transforms  into  the  univer- 
sal task,  God's  and  ours,  of  spirit's  transcendent 
self-realization. 

The  reconstructive  principle  is  adequate  to  all 
demands  of  modern  thought.  No  construction  of  a 
new  metaphysic  has  been  attempted  in  these  pages: 
such  an  adventure  would  require  very  different  pro- 
cedures. But  the  germ  of  a  philosophy  is  in  the  world- 
transcending  principle.    A  germinal  philosophy  is  at- 


THE  RECONSTRUCTIVE  ENERGIES         279 

tained  when  a  man  is  able  to  say:  I  have  found  my 
path  and  the  energy  that  guides.  The  Semitic  secret 
is  the  discovery  of  every  Christian,  and  is  discovered 
as  the  essential,  the  all-inclusive. 

If  the  fundamental  of  the  true  philosophy  cannot 
be  found  by  common  men,  what  advantage  in  any 
man's  finding  it?  If  hfe's  secret,  direction,  and  power 
(and  philosophy  either  devotes  itself  to  this  enterprise 
or  else  is  the  mere  gratification  of  an  insignificant 
curiosity)  is  not  attainable  by  the  lowliest,  then  a 
man  of  this  age,  living  in  the  social  passion  of  our  time, 
is  forced  to  be  indifferent  to  that  which  would  be  the 
monopoly  of  a  few  gifted  souls.  But  if  the  funda- 
mental of  life,  hid  from  the  wise  and  prudent,  is 
revealed  unto  babes,  then  we  who  share  the  social 
passion  of  the  Master  may  rejoice  in  His  thanks- 
giving. Life's  secret  as  known  by  simplest  hearts, 
in  the  power  of  Jesus, — if  we  have  become  childlike 
enough  to  find  that,  we  have  found  the  essential  of 
the  true  philosophy.  And  we  have  found  it  in  His 
task.  His  overcoming  of  the  world,  His  realization 
of  spirit  in  this  toil  and  conquest.  The  discovery 
is  to  be  broadened,  clarified,  and  expressed  ever 
more  adequately,  by  the  acutest  powers  of  the  human 
mind,  in  accord  with  the  continual  enlargements  of 
human  life,  while  yet  we  sit  at  Jesus'  feet  or  "walk 


28o        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

with  Him  in  lowly  paths  of  service."  The  universal 
accessibility  of  this  principle  signifies  that  it  is  the 
consummation  of  all  normal  interests,  yet  it  has 
nothing  of  the  vulgar,  the  commonplace,  for  it  is  not 
confined  to  the  range  of  that  which  it  fulfills.  It 
consummates  all  the  elements  of  human  life  by  sur- 
mounting them.  It  includes  them  all  in  the  tran- 
scendent task,  thus  making  them  all  new,  bringing 
to  pass  the  new-created  soul  in  the  new-created  uni- 
verse. 

And  yet — to  indicate  in  a  paragraph  a  thought 
which  would  require  many  volumes  to  expound — this 
principle,  so  accessible,  is  in  accord  with  the  strongest 
present  tendencies  of  fundamental  thinking;  accordant 
with  them  in  the  sense  of  fulfilling  them,  in  the  same 
manner  as  it  fulfills  the  normal  interests  and  impulses 
of  all  men.  The  motive  of  philosophy  today  is  the 
impulse  of  work  to  be  accomplished  by  powers  which 
realize  themselves  in  the  work,  and  the  evaluations 
which  this  conviction  renders  are  in  terms  of  power  for 
the  furtherance  of  the  work.  Yet  little  progress  can 
be  made  until  the  determination  of  the  direction  and 
the  unfolding  nature  of  the  work  unites  energies  else 
wasted  and  mutually  antagonistic.  And  even  when 
it  is  nobly  said  that  our  work  is  the  development,  the 
achieving  of  spiritual  life,  we  are  still  inactively  uncer- 


THE  RECONSTRUCTIVE   ENERGIES  281 

tain,  until  we  know  the  course  which  this  unfolding 
of  spirit  must  follow,  the  conflict  by  which  it  must  be 
achieved.  Only  then  can  we  learn  what  spirit  is,  or 
spiritual  life,  for  it  is  to  be  learned  in  its  self-assertions 
against  that  which  opposes  it.  Then  the  ideaUsms, 
freed  from  their  rigidity,  become  active  and  progres- 
sive. Then  the  materialisms  render  service  by  mar- 
shaling the  oppositions  which  the  spirit  must  subdue 
to  itself,  attaining  itself  by  their  subjugation.  The 
Semitic  principle — better  to  say,  the  task  of  Jesus— 
transcendently  fulfills  our  modern  thought.  It  is 
thus  fundamentally  the  reconstructive  energy  of 
modern  life.  Innumerable  problems  arise  from  such 
assertions.  Their  answers  can  be  given  only  by  the 
unfolding  of  the  task  of  spirit's  transcendent  world- 
conquest,  of  which  these  problems  are  essential  com- 
ponents. The  assertion  of  this  militant  labor  involves 
the  challenge  to  all  life  and  thought  to  undertake  the 
task. 

We  have  acknowledged  Jesus  to  be  the  central 
energy  of  the  task.  But  when  the  task  and  the  energy 
that  dwells  within  it  are  viewed  as  universal  conquest, 
fulfilled  through  inexhaustible  power,  is  such  a  con- 
fession of  Jesus  possible,  even  when  we  have  found 
His  significance  to  each  life  that  would  achieve  the 
world- transcending  victory,  and  His  indispensableness 


282         THE  CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

to  humanity  which  attains  itself  by  His  overcoming? 
Must  not  Jesus  at  length  pass  from  this  central  place, 
even  as  the  wavering  faith  of  St.  Paul  conceived  His 
passing?  Must  not  the  actual,  historic  Jesus  become 
insufficient  for  a  task  that  unfolds  inimitably,  and  be 
proven  the  central  energy  of  only  a  phase  of  our 
eternal  victory  and  self-reahzation?  Or  must  we 
again  turn  from  the  real  Jesus  to  the  fantastic  con- 
struction of  some  being  of  higher  cosmic  significance, 
to  the  irrational  conception  of  an  "essential"  or 
"ideal  Christ,"  of  a  premundane  Logos,  incompletely 
expressed  in  the  prophet  of  Nazareth?  Yet  if  that 
displacing  of  Jesus  were  ever  to  be,  He  would  be  in- 
completely our  Saviour  now,  and  the  central  energy 
of  the  transcendent  task  would  be  elsewhere,  if  indeed 
it  could  be  anywhere.  At  present  am  I  not  deceiving 
myself  by  confessing  Him  sufficient  who  is  not  really 
so?  Even  as  it  is  no  longer  possible  to  call  the  earth 
the  center  of  the  universe,  is  it  any  more  possible  to 
say  that  one  who  actually  lived  thereon  is  the  spiritual 
center  of  the  task  universal  and  eternal? 

These  difficulties  are  of  a  type  of  thought  no  longer 
possible,  and  disappear  when  its  crudities  are  exposed. 
It  is  imposed  upon  by  the  magnitude  of  the  spaces  and 
times  of  the  physical  universe,  magnitude  that  may 
be  only  apparent,  and  that  is  incommensurate  with 


THE  RECONSTRUCTIVE  ENERGIES  283 

the  greatness  of  the  soul.  And  when  the  universe 
becomes  to  us  the  spiritual  universe,  it  is  not  to  be 
thought  of  as  a  static  somewhat,  realistically  conceived 
as  separate  from  us  and  somehow  to  be  brought  into 
relation  with  us.  Our  spiritual  universe  is  just  the 
realization  of  spirit;  it  is  the  world-transcendent  task 
and  conquest.  In  its  furthest  immensities,  in  its  most 
victorious  unfoldings,  its  reahzation  can  be  nothing 
else  than  that  power  which  Jesus  is. 

This  energy  is  the  indwelling  God.  Not  God 
Hellenically  conceived  as  immanent  in  the  world  to 
be  appropriated  as  world,  but  the  spiritual  God  in 
whom  spiritual  manhood  lives  and  moves  and  attains 
its  being.  It  is  this  God  whom  Jesus  recognized  as  the 
power  of  our  overcoming.  It  is  this  God  who  has  in 
Jesus  His  central  energy.  God  is  the  God  of  the  tasb 
This  ascription  is  ultimate  in  its  unlimited  elasticity. 
God  apprehended  as  incipiently  as  we  apprehend  our 
spiritual  being,  which  is  our  spiritual  conquest.  We 
penetrate  the  clouds  and  darkness  which  are  round 
about  Him,  only  as  we  penetrate  the  clouds  and  dark- 
ness of  our  limitless  adventure;  God  attained  through 
ever  expanding  conflicts  of  thought  and  life;  God  the 
mystery  unfathomable,  the  vastness  incomprehen- 
sible, because  the  immanence  of  the  infinite  task,  the 
power  of  the  universal  conquest. 


284        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

God  is  God  of  the  task.  To  ask  what  God  is  as 
outside  the  task,  before  it  or  beyond  it,  is  a  question 
without  meaning,  for  we  find  nothing  outside  the 
task.  Our  knowledge  of  God  advances  as  our  accom- 
pHshment  of  the  task  advances.  It  is  incomplete  as 
our  realization  of  the  task  is  incomplete.  The  diffi- 
culties concerning  the  relation  of  God  to  the  world  and 
to  our  own  souls  are  difficulties  given  by  the  task  and 
expHcated  as  it  unfolds.  There  are  unsolved  problems 
as  there  are  unachieved  toils.  Yet  through  all  the 
groping  of  our  endeavors  we  know  what  the  task  is 
which  we  have  to  achieve,  and  this  is  knowledge  of 
the  God  of  it. 

The  realization  of  spirit  alone  gives  us  God  to  be 
experienced  and  known.  Nature  is  not  the  origin  of 
our  knowledge  of  Him.  He  is  not  proven  cosmolog- 
ically.  In  and  from  and  against  the  natural  order, 
spirit  gains  itself.  By  the  spiritual  self-realization  in 
reference  to  nature  God  is  known,  but  not  from  nature 
except  in  this  reference.  Therefore  all  the  mysteries 
in  nature  cannot  challenge  our  affirmation  of  God, 
mysteries  of  its  confusions,  strifes,  and  woes,  creation 
groaning  and  travailing  in  pain  together  until  now, 
mysteries  of  its  assaults  upon  the  human  soul,  which 
it  darkens  and  overwhelms.  From  these  disasters, 
as  well  as  from  nature's  glories  and  its  alliances  with 


THE  RECONSTRUCTIVE  ENERGIES  285 

us,  we  attain  the  spiritual  transformations  of  it.  In 
all  these  attainings  there  is  knowledge  of  God,  who 
is  not  in  the  cosmic  whirlwind  and  fire,  save  as  these 
are  learned  to  be,  in  their  ultimate  significance,  the 
divine  thought  and  word  and  life,  into  which  we  find 
them  transformed  as  we  fulfill  our  task  upon  them. 

When  in  our  search  for  God  we  turn  from  nature 
to  the  inner  life,  we  must  be  sure  that  the  inner  life  is 
apprehended  deeply  enough  to  be  adequate  to  the  find- 
ing of  Him.  It  would  be  absurd  to  direct  such  a  search 
away  from  the  vast  Heavens,  into  the  confinements 
of  petty  individual  thoughts  and  feeble  strivings,  even 
if  these  are  multiplied  and  united  in  multitudes  of 
petty  and  feeble  men,  thinking  and  endeavoring  to- 
gether. There  is  no  finding  of  omniscience  in  our 
foolishness,  of  omnipotence  in  our  futility,  of  holiness 
in  our  impurity.  Not  in  such  self-affirmations,  but 
in  denials  of  ourselves,  do  we  find  Him.  When  we 
have  learned  that  the  soul's  energies  are  not  to  be 
expended  upon  the  appropriation  of  the  world,  but 
that  by  crucifixion  of  ourselves  to  the  world  and  of  the 
world  to  ourselves  we  must  give  ourselves  to  the  real- 
ization of  spirit  in  the  world-transcending  conquest, 
then  we  learn  the  infinite  power  which  is  within  us, 
for  the  eternal  toil  which  is  before  us.  Then  the  en- 
franchised spiritual  finds  in  its  thought,  its  heart,  and 


286        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

its  moral  struggle,  the  potency  of  an  endless  unfolding. 
This  is  the  affirmation  of  God  which  inwardly  unites 
and  implicitly  completes  all  potencies  of  man  and 
humanity,  of  world,  of  all  souls  in  their  enlarging 
alliances  of  a  universe  to  be  spiritually  realized. 

This  confession  of  God  involves  apprehensions  of 
the  divine  which  pass  beyond  the  scope  of  this  book. 
Though  these  conceptions  would  enhance  the  reli- 
gious value  of  the  confession,  we  have  already  the 
God  who  is  infinite  power  for  the  universal  task.  To 
the  God  of  the  task  belongs  the  eternal  victory  of  all- 
embracing,  all-sacrificing  love.  In  all  our  toils  He 
labors;  in  all  our  afflictions  He  is  afflicted.  All  our 
achievements  are  His  joy.  Every  recovery  from 
failure  is  His  redemption  of  us,  and  the  glory  of  every 
overcoming  is  forever  unto  Him,  He  reaps  the  har- 
vest of  that  which  He  has  sown  and  grown  in  us,  to  be 
laid  at  His  feet,  poured  into  His  heart's  unselfish 
blessedness.  This  is  the  God  of  every  human  soul, 
of  the  stars  above  us,  of  the  dust  beneath  our  feet. 
And  the  nature  of  every  being  in  itself,  and  in  its 
relations  to  all  else  in  the  one  spiritual  universe,  is 
spiritual  self-realization  in  the  God  of  the  task,  who 
is  infinite  love,  patience  inexhaustible,  sacrifice  with- 
out limit,  victory  without  end. 

The  truth  of  this   adoration  is  radiant  in  Jesus' 


THE   RECONSTRUCTIVE  ENERGIES  287 

life  and  ministry,  His  cross  and  passion,  His  eternal 
life  and  victory.  By  the  divinity  of  Jesus,  which  these 
pages  have  indicated,  not  explored,  we  mean,  not  the 
mythical  identification  of  alleged  substance  with 
substance,  but  the  central  energy  of  God's  task  in  His 
universe  of  spiritual  beings.  Therefore  our  task  draws 
its  quality  from  that  sacrifice,  its  victory  over  the  world 
from  that  overcoming.  Such  as  it  is  in  Jesus,  is  the 
nature  of  God's  sacrificial  working  in  each  one  of  us. 
Nothing  less  and  nothing  other  can  God's  work  be  in 
all  things,  which  are  His  own,  and  which  without  this 
His  action  in  them,  could  have  no  being.  From  ever- 
lasting to  everlasting,  in  all  His  worlds,  through  His 
heavens  of  measureless  spiritual  length  and  breadth 
and  depth  and  height,  this  which  we  see  in  the  cruci- 
fied is  the  sacrificial,  self-emptying  toil  of  God's  in- 
satiable love,  down  to  the  lowliest  and  faintest  be- 
ginnings of  that  which  He  wills  to  raise  to  His  own 
likeness,  and  out  to  the  remotest  wanderings  of  souls 
that  have  refused  to  find  themselves  in  Him.  To 
Him  belong  all  the  strifes  and  pains,  all  the  thwartings 
and  repressions,  the  miseries  of  the  beatings  back,  the 
agonies  of  the  strivings  on,  the  continual  overcomings 
in  which  all  the  sorrows  find  their  unfathomable 
justification.  It  is  of  his  love's  infinite  perfection 
that  it  can  be  defrauded.    It  is  love's  heart  that  can 


288        THE  CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

be  pierced.  The  freedom  which  He  ever  imparts  to 
us  that  we  may  accompHsh  a  real  task  in  Him,  may  be 
turned  to  the  defeat  of  that  which  He  would  be  in  us 
and  through  us.  We  rob  God  of  the  realizations  of 
His  own  life.  Whatever  our  selfishness  and  listlessness 
keep  back  from  the  realizations  of  other  lives,  we  keep 
back  from  Him.  Yet  love  has  resources  against  even 
these  obstacles,  and  Jesus,  the  center  of  God's  re- 
demptive energy,  is  the  center  of  His  redemptive 
suffering,  and  God  sees  of  the  travail  of  His  soul  and 
is  satisfied. 

In  that  unity  of  the  task  which  God  ever  possesses, 
we  and  all  things  have  our  realization,  which  is  eternal, 
victorious,  and  attained  as  we  blend  our  labors, 
sorrows,  and  joys  with  His,  for  the  realizations  and 
redemptions  of  other  souls,  into  whom  we  enter 
with  His  love  and  power.  It  is  no  Heaven  of  ease 
that  we  anticipate  for  ourselves  and  attribute  to 
God,  but  His  toil  and  sacrifice  for  all  His  creatures, 
in  the  ever  deepening  energy  of  Jesus'  cross.  In  this 
devotion  is  all  worth,  all  joy,  the  inexhaustible  bless- 
edness of  the  infinitely  holy  love,  our  Father. 

Thus  the  energies  are  sufiicient  for  the  spiritual 
conquest  in  every  range  of  it,  and  sufficient  for  that 
phase  of  it  which  we  call  the  Christian  reconstruction 
of    modern    life.      Corrections    and    fulfillments    are 


THE  RECONSTRUCTIVE  ENERGIES  289 

involved  of  the  conceptions  of  religion,  of  ethics, 
of  Christianity,  and  of  the  latter's  institutions,  beliefs, 
agencies,  and  methods.  Some  of  these  normalizations 
have  been  indicated  in  our  unfolding  of  the  Semitic 
principle  into  Jesus'  redemptive  conquest.  And 
in  Him  is  found  the  power  to  direct  all  the  resources 
of  the  spirit  to  their  mightiest  exercise.  We  pass  to 
our  final  thought,  the  applications  of  this  power  to 
our  modern  life. 

A  few  years  ago  such  an  application  would  seem 
beset  with  desperately  difficult  intricacies.  The 
question,  What  is  that  to  which  our  application  can 
be  made? — would  have  seemed  unanswerable. 

With  inconceivable  suddenness  our  age  has  at- 
tained an  issue  which  includes  men  highest  and  lowest, 
the  most  learned  and  the  most  ignorant.  This  is  the 
age  in  which  all  interests  group  themselves  for  or 
against  the  social  purpose,  all  impulses  form  or  resist 
the  social  passion.  It  is  this  social  consciousness, 
felt  with  a  universality,  depth,  and  intensity  hitherto 
unapproached,  which  makes  our  age  unique  and 
renders  it  the  completive  representative  of  modern 
life,  in  unexpected  fulfillment  of  the  forces  which 
were  released  at  the  Renaissance.  All  the  movements 
of  our  time  merge  in  this  flood.  Every  interest  unfolds 
to  this  absorption.    Every  power  of  the  age  is  arrayed 


290        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

for    it    or    against    it,    for   this   is   our   all-inclusive 
battle. 

It  is  this  social  passion  which  turns  us  anew  to 
the  sources  of  power,  to  the  reconstructive  spiritual 
energies.  Every  realization  of  it  must  be  the  further- 
ance of  the  spiritual  task,  must  move  in  the  God  of 
the  task,  the  Jesus  of  the  task.  For  the  social  passion 
of  our  time  must  know  itself  as  nothing  else  than  the 
social  passion  of  the  Man  of  Galilee,  nothing  less  than 
the  heart-beat  of  the  Eternal. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   SPIRITUALIZING   OF   THE   SOCIAL  PASSION 

Jesus  did  not  teach  two  Gospels,  one  personal, 
the  other  social.  It  is  not  an  adequate  statement  that 
His  mission  has  social  corollaries  or  implications, 
or  that  we  may  infer  social  principles  from  His  life 
and  teachings.  His  one  Gospel  is  the  social  Gospel, 
even  as  Jesus  is  the  social  man  and  the  central  energy 
of  the  social  redemption  of  the  social  God.  The  realiz- 
ation of  spirit  by  the  transcendent  world-conquest  is 
the  task  of  humanity  united  in  the  divine  Spirit, 
and  no  one  can  even  undertake  the  task  except  in 
this  universal  fellowship.  Each  soul's  overcomings  are 
in  participation  with  the  self-attainings  of  all  souls, 
present,  past,  and  future,  however  distant  or  as  yet 
untraceable. 

From  this  social  Gospel  of  Jesus  in  its  reconstruc- 
tive applications  to  the  social  passion  of  our  time, 
we  select,  in  closing,  the  following  elements,  to  be 
briefly  indicated:  Jesus'  transcendent  fulfillments 
of  the  developed  Hellenic  social  consciousness;  the 

distinction  of  His  social  Gospel  from  the  solidaric 

291 


292         THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

and  its  completion  of  the  personal;  His  social  inter- 
pretation of  spiritual  failure;  His  social  ideal  of  re- 
deemed character. 

These  spiritual  fulfillments  of  the  Hellenic  social 
genius  are  possible  because  its  purpose  is  not  things, 
but  human  life.  Against  barbarism,  which  is  the 
world's  victory  over  men,  in  whatever  forms  things 
may  repress  us,  or  as  comforts,  luxuries,  or  aggran- 
dizements seduce  us,  our  Hellenic  inheritance  de- 
mands a  life  free,  rich,  beautiful,  of  well-ordered,  self- 
restrained  buoyancy  of  soul.  The  fulfillment  of  this 
impulse  in  the  transcendent  world-conquest  becomes 
all  the  clearer  when  the  Hellenic  ideal  is  socially 
interpreted,  and  its  spiritual  completions  are  socially 
conceived. 

Jesus'  social  passion  must  enter  a  social  movement 
which  is  now  in  its  militant  stage.  There  are  indeed 
premonitions  of  the  day  when  men  generally  and  all 
human  powers  may  cooperate  for  social  ends.  But 
we  must  not  suffer  ourselves  to  be  blinded  to  present 
conditions  by  this  anticipation,  nor  by  the  selfish 
hypocrisy  that  assumes  to  minister  to  humanity,  as 
the  monopolists  divert  to  social  interests  a  fraction  of 
that  which  they  have  abstracted  from  social  good, 
and  serve  to  rule,  under  the  pretense  of  ruling  to 
serve.     The  social  wrath  of  our  time  arrays  itself 


SPIRITUALIZING  THE  SOCIAL  PASSION     293 

against  those  who,  on  a  large  scale  or  on  a  small  scale, 
with  insolent  exploitation  or  petty  fraud,  despoil 
the  human  soul  and  thwart  the  human  task,  using 
new  agencies  for  the  same  ancient  oppression.  For 
self-restraint,  guidance,  and  power,  these  excoriations 
must  transcend  and  fulfill  themselves  in  the  social 
indignations  of  the  man  of  Nazareth. 

This  they  may  do  when  they  are  kindled  by  the 
wrongs  of  nothing  less  than  the  human  soul.  Our 
intensest  anger  is  not  that  mouths  are  hungry,  but 
that  insufficient  physical  nourishment  means  mind 
and  heart  unfed;  not  that  bodies  are  crowded  to- 
gether in  the  homeless  warrens  of  poverty,  but  that 
then  the  soul  is  without  air  to  breathe  or  room  to 
grow  in,  and  the  decencies  and  dignities  owed  to 
manhood,  womanhood,  and  childhood  are  denied; 
not  that  men's  shoulders  are  bowed  down  by  hopeless, 
aimless  labor,  but  that  the  soul's  power  to  do  its 
proper  task  is  crushed  out  of  it.  And  this  indignation 
can  demand  no  less  a  right  for  all  men  than  untram- 
meled  growth  of  power  for  wisdom  and  beauty,  for 
joy  and  love,  for  righteousness  and  holiness.  The 
demand  is  not  for  things,  except  as  things  serve  souls, 
not  for  conditions,  except  as  conditions  further  the 
inner  life. 

Whatever  differentiations  of  work  are  necessary  for 


294        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

the  cooperant  developments  of  human  souls,  what- 
ever accumulations,  whatever  abilities  to  direct,  what- 
ever discipUnes  and  obediences  are  requisite  to  this 
end,  a  clear-sighted  and  resolute  social  passion  not 
only  permits  them  but  insists  upon  them.  Such  a 
purpose  discerns  that  industrial  and  social  regimes 
must  continually  change  with  changed  conditions,  and 
especially  with  the  continually  expanding  capacities 
of  human  worths  and  joys,  by  evolution  if  it  may  be, 
by  revolution  if  it  must  be;  yet  harboring  no  desire 
for  a  materialistic  Utopia,  and  seeking  not  greater 
ease  for  the  human  soul,  but  freer  scope  for  larger 
toils.  The  words:  fair,  just,  equitable,  are  defined 
in  terms  of  the  inner  goals.  Every  defense  else  plausi- 
ble, of  existing  evil  conditions  is  stultified  by  this 
deep  passion.  Every  apology  for  a  child  labor  that 
deflowers  childhood,  for  the  unsexing  or  oversexing 
of  womanhood,  for  toils  that  narrow  the  Hfe  of  the 
toiler,  on  the  plea  that  things  may  be  more  abundantly 
supplied  or  distributed,  or  that  wealth  may  increase, 
or  for  any  reason  whatever,  receives  the  flaming 
answer:  What  shall  it  profit  humanity  to  gain  the 
whole  world  and  to  lose  its  own  soul?  But  this  rage 
fulfills  itself  in  the  transcendent  indignation  of  Jesus 
against  the  fraud  and  greed  and  injustice  of  His 
time  and  all  times,  against  the  rapacity  that  devours 


SPIRITUALIZING  THE  SOCIAL  PASSION     295 

widows'  houses  and  lays  on  men's  shoulders  burdens 
too  heavy  to  be  borne.  For  he  asserted  the  right  of 
every  personality  to  be  a  child  of  God,  and  the  right 
of  humanity  to  attain  itself  in  a  spiritual  fellowship 
of  all-conquering,  all-transcending  mutual  love. 

One  to  whom  this  revelation  has  been  given  need 
not  postpone  his  service  till  mankind  has  learned  the 
social  Gospel  of  Jesus,  nor  work  till  then  in  isolation. 
An  important  part  of  his  service  is  indeed  to  proclaim 
Jesus'  energizing  social  principle.  But  he  also  fosters 
every  impulse  of  men  that  sets  itself  toward  man- 
hood's aim.  He  accepts,  intensifies,  and  seeks  to 
fulfill  everything  that  makes  for  increase  of  soul, 
that  removes  repressions  to  spiritual  growth,  and 
that  stimulates  the  inner  powers.  He  enjoys  the 
continual  discovery  of  Jesus'  social  aim  implicit  in 
all  men's  tasks.  He  unites  himself  with  every  historic 
progress  and  leads  it  along  the  upward  path.  He 
toils  patiently,  against  vast  discouragements,  that 
men  may  know  what  the  transcendent  spiritual  con- 
quest is,  and  how  in  every  farm  and  factory  and 
market-place  and  court  and  legislative  hall,  in  every 
rectification  of  conditions,  in  every  efficiency,  econ- 
omy, expansion,  and  ennoblement  of  industry,  in  every 
growth  of  science  and  goverimient,  in  every  unfolding 
of  beauty  and  joy,  in  every  triumph  of  righteousness, 


296        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

in  every  deepening  of  love,  and  in  every  appropriation 
of  ideal  values,  man  may  win  in  and  from  and  against 
the  world,  that  one  thing  precious,  his  own  soul. 

Jesus'  transcendent  fulfillment  of  the  developed 
Hellenic  social  consciousness  becomes  more  clear 
in  the  distinction  of  His  social  Gospel  from  the 
solidaric  and  its  completion  of  the  personal. 

Jesus  is  the  social  redeemer  because  He  is  the  dis- 
coverer of  the  individual  soul.  The  solidaric  concep- 
tions of  antiquity,  which  subordinate  the  individual 
to  the  state,  which  conceive  of  man  as  made  for  in- 
stitutions or  vested  rights  or  for  anything  less  than 
the  attainment  of  free  personality,  were  indeed  con- 
tinually assailed  before  His  coming,  by  the  growing 
powers  of  personal  consciousness;  yet  the  essential  of 
this  personal  freedom  could  not  be  reached  before 
Jesus'  realization  of  the  world-transcending  task,  in 
which  personality  learns  its  own  spiritual  possibihty 
and  fights  out  its  own  spiritual  being.  Here  is  the 
discovery  of  individual  manhood,  which  cannot  serve 
anything  lower  than  the  personal.  In  this  discovery  is 
Jesus'  discovery  of  the  woman,  the  child,  the  common 
man,  of  the  regenerative  potentialities  of  the  criminal 
classes,  of  the  unlimited  possibilities  of  the  lower  races, 
of  the  universalism  of  human  liberty,  of  the  absolute 
right  of  every  man  to  live  his  own  life  and  to  work 


SPIRITUALIZING  THE   SOCIAL  PASSION     297 

out  his  own  destiny.  All  these  potencies  are  fulfilled 
as  each  personality  gains  itself  from  all  other  person- 
alities, contributes  its  very  self  to  all  others,  and 
works  out  for  itself  and  for  all  others  the  universal 
task  of  the  realization  of  humanity. 

The  distinction  of  Jesus'  Gospel  from  the  solidaric 
and  its  social  completion  of  the  personal  is  of  funda- 
mental importance  in  the  directing  of  the  social 
trends  of  our  age.  Solidaric  conceptualism  and  in- 
stitutionalism  beset  our  social  consciousness.  Hoary 
examples  are  the  church  when  conceptualized  and 
institutionalized  as  an  authority  to  which  thought 
and  life  must  subject  themselves,  not  conceived  as 
having  its  value  exclusively  in  the  spiritualizing  of 
mankind's  task,  most  divinely,  personally,  and  socially 
apprehended.  The  nation  also  when  formulated  as 
existing  in  a  lower  right  than  its  service  of  the  utmost 
development  of  each  and  all  its  citizens.  Meaner 
examples  are  the  political  party  when  followed  for 
its  own  sake,  not  for  the  sake  of  its  ends;  the  class, 
aristocratic,  bourgeois,  or  proletarian. 

It  is  this  solidaric  conceptuahsm  and  institutional- 
ism  which  threatens  to  pervert  the  social  purposes  of 
the  toilers.  The  collectivism  which  is  making  such 
rapid  progress  in  the  desires  of  men,  may  involve 
disaster    to   that   individual   initiative,    energy   and 


298        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

liberty,  upon  which  depend  the  hopes  of  the  personal 
and  social  realization  of  humanity.  No  argument 
is  intended  against  socialism  or  for  it.  From  present 
forms  of  organization  the  great  task  must  pass  on, 
and  the  forms  which  are  to  succeed  the  present 
regime  are  to  be  unfolded  as  the  realization  of  the 
task  unfolds.  The  progressive  task  determines 
these  organizations;  organizations  existent  or  con- 
templated must  not  constrict  the  progress  of  the  task. 
There  will  be  little  gain  in  exchanging  one  conceptual 
and  institutional  solidarity  for  another.  If  this  should 
eventuate,  or  when  this  impotent  conclusion  becomes 
evident,  mankind  may  prefer  the  ancient  repressions, 
or  an  unrestrained  individualism  may  sweep  away 
personal  and  social  values,  until,  despairing  of  any 
other  issue,  we  bend  our  necks  to  the  old  burdens, 
which  will  seem  to  have  proven  themselves  inevitable. 
Or  else,  as  we  come  to  the  envisaging  of  these  alter- 
natives, we  shall  waver  and  hesitate,  in  a  resource- 
lessness  capable  of  little  progress,  if  indeed  it  may 
grope  on  at  all.  Not  by  any  mutual  adjustments  of 
individualistic  and  solidaric  claims  may  we  attain 
the  energy  of  social  progress,  but  only  by  the  unfolding 
of  that  social  consciousness  in  which  personal  powers 
and  personalities  are  completed.  In  its  light  alone 
our    civilization   must   determine   whether   its   next 


SPIRITUALIZING  THE  SOCIAL  PASSION     299 

phase  of  organization  is  to  be  formed  on  socialistic 
or  other  lines.  By  its  power  alone  can  the  next  devel- 
opment in  the  organizations  of  human  life  fulfill  our 
longings  for  a  happier  and  better  humanity. 

An  inevitable  phenomenon  of  our  social  age  is  the 
outbreak  of  individualism,  in  reaction  against  both 
the  solidaric  traditions  and  the  solidaric  tendencies. 
There  is  no  power  in  any  institution,  however  vener- 
able, with  traditions  however  imposing,  nor  in  any 
solidaric  anticipation  of  a  golden  age,  to  resist  the 
demand  of  a  soul  to  live  its  own  life  and  freely  to 
achieve  itself.  Only  when  this  impulse  is  led  on  to  its 
social  goal,  only  when  the  enfranchised  task  of  each 
spiritual  manhood  reveals  itself  in  mankind's  rational 
purpose,  can  there  be  the  hearty  acceptance  of  law 
and  order,  wherein  are  asserted  the  decencies,  amen- 
ities, and  sanctities  that  serve  this  social  freedom. 
Against  the  tendencies  that  threaten  to  disrupt  our 
civilization  and  to  reduce  it  to  barbarous  chaos,  there 
is  but  one  social  energy  that  can  save  us. 

In  the  light  of  the  anti-solidaric  principle  of  Jesus 
is  revealed  not  only  the  irrationality  of  social  eudemon- 
ism,  but  also  the  impossibility  of  conceiving  it.  If, 
by  any  device,  all  men  should  live  in  the  comfort  and 
prosperity  connoted  by  that  term,  with  the  enjoy- 
ment which  it  intends  unrestrictedly  to  open  to  all,  no 


300        THE  CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

social  aim  would  be  thereby  achieved,  nor  social  prin- 
ciple expressed.  Not  though  the  comfort,  prosperity, 
and  pleasure  were  most  cooperatively  attained  and 
held  in  an  organization  which  should  safeguard  the 
equal  privileges  of  all.  For  the  enjoyment  of  these 
things  as  such  is  a  merely  individual  enjoyment, 
which  no  cooperative  means  can  transcend.  Social  eu- 
demonism  is  a  contradiction  in  terms.  Every  devotion 
that  is  conceived  to  be  for  this  aim  lifts  itself,  as  devo- 
tion, above  the  aim  and  pursues  something  higher. 
Therefore  every  truly  social  aim  transcends  this  pur- 
pose, even  though  it  does  so  unconsciously.  And  the 
germ  of  every  such  personally  social  transcendence 
must  unfold  in  the  realization  of  every  life  in  its 
blending  with  every  other,  in  toils  and  conquests 
which  no  man  experiences  deeply  except  in  that 
fundamental  universality  which  is  the  Gospel  of  Jesus. 
The  solidaric  perversions  of  the  social  impulse,  in 
the  interest  either  of  reaction  or  of  radicalism,  are 
overcome  by  Jesus'  personal-social  Gospel.  Against 
all  these  usurpations  is  asserted  the  right  of  mankind 
to  realize  itself  by  the  personal  realizations  of  all  its 
members  in  their  supreme  task  together.  There  are 
no  rights  of  government  except  in  the  service  of  this 
right,  nor  of  property,  nor  of  vested  interests,  nor  of 
any  institution  ecclesiastical  or  secular. 


SPIRITUALIZING  THE   SOCIAL  PASSION     301 

This  principle,  in  order  to  fulfill  itself,  has  to  con- 
sider the  Roman  element  of  our  civilization,  the 
peculiarly  constructive  element,  with  its  metes  and 
bounds  which  only  knaves  and  madmen  desire  to 
break  through.  The  one  human  right  must  use  as  its 
instruments  these  Roman  organizations  of  the  forms 
of  civilization.  It  must  develop  all  these  forms 
according  to  the  expansion  of  its  own  purpose.  It 
must  not  repudiate  or  even  modify  a  single  one  of 
them  now  existent  except  for  the  evident  advantage 
of  that  high  purpose  which  they  serve,  yet  never 
permitting  a  repressive  survival  of  things  that  have 
ceased  to  benefit,  and  annulling  them  so  that  the  man- 
ner of  the  change  shall  be  of  benefit.  Here  is  the  field 
of  the  social  sciences  in  their  widest  action,  govern- 
mental, legal,  or  economic.  These  sciences  find  their 
unprescribed  function  and  method  when  directed, 
each  in  the  proper  limitations  of  its  own  service,  to 
the  one  personal-social  aim. 

The  revolutionary  as  well  as  the  conservative  nature 
of  this  principle  must  be  frankly  admitted.  The 
divine  right  of  property  shares  the  ignoble  fate  of  the 
divine  right  of  kings.  Nothing  more  is  owed  to  vested 
interests  than  is  due  to  traditional  privilege.  Nothing 
was  owed  to  the  despoiled  holders  of  slaves.  Society 
can  acknowledge  no  obhgation  to  anything  that  has 


302        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

become  a  nuisance  or  a  menace,  or  has  ceased  to  be 
of  social  value.  No  reparation  can  be  justly  claimed 
by  the  church  when  its  property  is  secularized  for 
social  good.  The  question  of  socialism  is  not  to  be 
compHcated  by  any  objection  of  property  holders 
against  spoliation.  Traditional  privilege  and  vested 
interest  have  resisted  every  human  advance,  and  their 
remonstrances  have  always  been  a  hypocritical  im- 
pertinence. When  reparation  is  given,  it  is  for  the 
sake  of  the  steady  progress  of  society,  and  for  no 
other  reason.  Yet  this  revolutionary  principle  is  the 
most  conservative.  Regard  and  reverence  are  accord- 
ed to  every  estabUshed  order,  to  every  vested  interest, 
to  every  traditional  observance,  in  their  furtherance 
of  the  human  task.  Since  no  alteration  is  permitted 
except  for  this  reason,  there  is  safety  from  every 
rapacity  and  wantonness  and  demagogic  lawlessness 
or  haste.  Every  change  accomplished  through  this 
principle  is  a  universal  benefit,  in  which  every  man, 
as  a  social  bemg,  receives  incalculably  more  than  he 
surrenders.  This  principle  must  always  be  held  in 
Jesus'  high  and  severe  completion  of  the  Hellenic 
social  genius.  Nothing  can  be  demanded  of  any  man 
for  any  purpose  that  does  not  enter  into  the  universal 
self-realization  of  spiritual  humanity. 

How  shall  this  all-inclusive  spiritual  aim  be  achieved? 


SPIRITUALIZING  THE  SOCIAL  PASSION     303 

It  seeks  that  social  union  of  developing  personalities 
in  which  all  righteousness  is  fulfilled,  and  the  means  it 
employs  must  be  altogether  righteous  in  a  conception 
of  righteousness  drawn  from  that  advancing  goal. 
It  seeks  that  social  union  of  developing  personalities 
in  which  love  is  consummated,  and  only  love  can 
attain  love's  purpose,  and  love  as  means  must  ever 
test  itself  by  love  as  consummate  end.  The  methods 
most  congenial  to  this  holy  love  in  its  task  are  not  the 
assertion  of  rights,  but  the  enthusiasm  of  duties;  not 
authority,  but  ministry;  not  rule,  but  sacrifice;  not 
the  throne,  but  the  cross.  To  be  confident  that 
humanity  shall  attain  itself  by  these  means,  and  that 
these  means  shall  occupy  every  relation  of  Hfe  and 
every  department  of  labor,  inspire  all  science  and  art 
and  every  widening  field  of  civilization,  seems  the 
maddest  dream  that  ever  obsessed  a  human  soul.  Yet 
as  we  look  around  us  and  back,  these  are  the  mightily 
efiicient  forces,  and  we  are  led  to  doubt  the  practical 
value  of  any  other.  What  powers  uncongenial  to  the 
spirit  can  be  used  for  the  spiritual  end,  which  is  the 
only  end  of  each  socialized  soul  and  of  personaHzed 
humanity? 

The  command  of  Jesus  not  to  resist  the  evil  man, 
but  to  give  the  other  cheek  to  the  smiter,  the  other 
mile  to  the  exploiter,  the  other  garment  to  the  de- 


304        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

spoiler, — what  response  to  these  injunctions  is  made 
by  those  over  whom  Lincoln  spoke  at  Gettysburg,  and 
by  the  indignant  passion  that  will  not  suffer  man  to 
be  robbed  of  the  human  soul? 

We  are  not  explaining  away  these  commands  but 
attributing  to  them  their  most  inexorable  emphasis 
when  we  say :  This  is  not  the  course  of  one  who  yields 
life's  ends  and  purposes,  but  of  one  who  asserts  life's 
most  arduous  purpose,  and  along  this  path  achieves  it 
for  Himself  and  humanity.  The  significance  of  these 
words  of  Jesus  is  given  by  the  world-transcending 
task  and  conquest,  by  which  humanity  is  realized 
and  all  the  potentialities  of  mankind  and  each  soul 
are  fulfilled.  There  is  no  passivity  here.  Jesus  had 
no  passive  virtues.  To  do  these  sayings  of  His  in 
servility  and  fear,  or  for  the  sake  of  ease  and  quietness, 
is  the  crudest  violation  of  them,  the  complete  surren- 
der of  personal  worth  as  He  held  it,  and  the  rankest 
treachery  to  the  cause  of  humanity  as  he  devoted 
Himself  to  it.  These  are  the  utterances  of  the  world's 
transcendent  conqueror,  who  faces  all  that  the  world 
may  bring  against  Him,  resolute,  aggressive,  unafraid. 

We  shall  learn  His  way  as  we  grow  in  the  compre- 
hension of  His  task.  The  alternative  at  every  moment 
is  devotion  or  unfaithfulness  to  His  task.  When  we 
have  to  choose  between  using  force  for  the  mainte- 


SPIRITUALIZING  THE  SOCIAL  PASSION     305 

nance  and  furtherance  of  social  attainments  that  serve 
His  purpose  which  completes  them,  or  supinely  yield- 
ing them  to  lawlessness  or  greed,  Christian  manhood 
will  fight  for  these  goods  in  His  name.  His  transcen- 
dent path,  as  His  transcendent  aim,  is  a  long  and  hard 
lesson  to  learn,  as  both  unfold  in  the  midst  of  new  con- 
ditions, and  of  new  problems  which  are  difficult  to 
bring  into  the  supreme  life  problem  that  He  solved. 

Yet  it  becomes  increasingly  clear,  that  everything 
in  the  achievement  of  humanity's  great  task  approves 
its  effective  value  in  proportion  as  it  accords  with 
these  strange  commands  of  His,  as  His  ministry  and 
its  supernal  culmination  interpret  and  confirm  them. 

The  greatness  of  the  Gettysburg  address  is  that  it 
is  a  universe  away  from  any  thought  of  the  military 
glory  of  that  victorious  day,  while  it  presents  the 
giving  of  the  last  full  measure  of  devotion  as  the  force 
to  render  imperishable,  government  of  the  people,  by 
the  people,  and  for  the  people.  The  impression  made 
by  St.  Gaudens'  Shaw  Memorial  is  in  its  consummate 
expression  of  the  implicitly  sacrificial  nature  of  our 
own  modern  culture,  as  its  superb  representative 
goes  forth  with  those  poor  black  men,  not  to  slay,  for 
that  we  insist  upon  forgetting,  but  to  be  slain,  and 
above  them  the  sorrowing  genius  of  victory  holds  the 
laurel  wreath  of  sacrifice.    Through  the  memories  of 


3o6        THE  CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

those  days  arises,  alas  that  it  should  be  so  dimly, 
a  vision  of  Jesus,  wise  and  strong  to  preserve  a  closer 
and  deeper  union,  for  a  world  mission  more  clearly 
comprehended,  and  to  effect  a  liberation  of  the  en- 
slaved to  a  hfe  more  free;  as  He  would  have  gone  upon 
that  task  in  the  power  by  which  He  of  old  created  the 
united  humanity,  and  broke  the  chains  that  bind  the 
human  soul;  as  He  of  old  accomplished  His  victory  in  a 
sacrificial  glory  that  makes  all  our  incomplete  devo- 
tions fade  before  His  cross.  We  beseech  His  forgive- 
ness that  we  choose  to  serve  Him  so  blunderingly 
rather  than  renounce  His  service;  for  it  is  not  His  will 
that  we  should  take  Him  or  His  words  for  an  external 
authority,  but  receive  them  as  increasingly  illumina- 
tive power.  May  there  soon  come  to  humanity  that 
knowledge  of  His  world-conquest  which  can  say:  Fools 
and  blind  that  we  have  ever  been  not  to  see  that  His 
great  purpose  is  to  be  accomplished  in  His  great  way! 
The  approach  to  this  wisdom  is  the  ever  deeper  learn- 
ing of  the  secret  of  His  cross. 

It  is  evident  that  Jesus'  reconstruction  of  modern 
life  must  extend  far  beyond  anything  that  we  are  now 
able  to  forecast,  beyond  the  imaginings  of  any  current 
social  enthusiasms.  Our  social  passion  feels  itself  in 
the  grasp  of  a  limitless  energy,  which  is  working  out 
social   goods  that  transcend   our  most    ardent  and 


SPIRITUALIZING  THE   SOCIAL   PASSION     307 

chastened  hopes.  The  unsearchable  mystery  of  the 
spiritual  task  as  personally  regarded  deepens  when 
we  feel  its  social  fulfillments.  Yet  we  know  it  as  task 
leading  to  accomplishments  unknown,  as  conquest 
leading  to  victories  now  inconceivable.  And  the  in- 
spiration of  this  mystery  is  increased  when  we  ap- 
proach Jesus'  social  interpretation  of  spiritual  failure. 
The  identification  of  salvation  with  faith  in  Jesus  is 
the  universal  confession  of  Christian  experience. 
This  identification  is  most  clear  when  we  apprehend 
Jesus  as  social  man,  central  energy  of  the  working 
of  the  social  God  our  Father,  and  author  of  the  salva- 
tion socially  realized  in  every  disciple.  This  evangel 
is  evident  even  in  the  latter  part  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, as  soon  as  we  eliminate  the  incipiently  dog- 
matic and  crudely  speculative  elements  of  that  teach- 
ing, and  cast  out  from  Christianity  without  remorse 
the  intrusions  of  revenge  and  hate.  In  Paul  and  his 
New  Testament  imitators  generally,  and  in  the 
Johannean  writings  for  the  most  part,  faith  in  the 
Saviour  is  one  with  love  to  our  fellowmen,  for  He  so 
loved.  Yet  we  turn  back  to  the  synoptic  gospels 
for  the  clearer  presentation  of  the  social  nature  of 
faith  in  Jesus.  The  issue  of  the  soul's  salvation  or  of 
eternal  loss  is  in  the  acceptance  or  refusal  of  that 
loyalty  to  Jesus  in  which  our  faith  in  Him  is  most 


3o8        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

vital  and  practical,  and  in  which  also  our  union  with 
Him  is  one  with  His  sacrificial  giving  of  Himself  to 
men.  Everything  depends  upon  this  personal  devotion 
to  our  Lord.  The  call,  "Follow  Me,"  speaks  absolute 
imperativeness,  whether  this  following  is  to  be  ex- 
pressed in  becoming  one  of  the  company  that  attended 
Him,  or  in  any  other  form  of  faithfulness  to  Him 
against  every  allurement  of  the  world,  every  rivalry 
of  other  appeals,  and  through  every  test  of  loss  or 
torture  or  ignominy  or  terrible  form  of  death.  This 
devotion  to  Jesus  is  devotion  to  Him  as  He  is,  and 
He  is  the  central  energy  of  the  transcendent  world- 
conquest  in  which  humanity  realizes  itself  and  all 
souls  may  achieve  their  unity.  Faith  in  Jesus  sinks 
to  an  empty  sentiment,  a  hollow  phrase,  an  extra- 
neous and  irrational  condition  of  salvation,  except 
when  Jesus  is  received  as  the  consummate  power  of 
social  manhood.  In  the  transcendent  human  fellow- 
ship created  by  Jesus  a  soul  is  saved.  In  separation 
from  it  a  soul  is  lost.  Faith's  fellowship  with  Jesus 
is  one  with  the  realization  of  our  fellowship  in  human- 
ity. 

Jesus'  social  interpretation  of  spiritual  failure  meets 
us  on  every  page  of  these  earlier  accounts  of  His 
mission,  and  is  the  undertone  of  nearly  the  whole 
New  Testament,  in  the  new  insistence  upon  love,  sacri- 


SPIRITUALIZING  THE  SOCIAL  PASSION     309 

fice,  humanity.  Perhaps  the  most  overwhelming 
portrayal  is  in  the  parable  of  the  rich  man  and  Lazarus. 
Whatever  additions  to  Jesus'  thought  our  criticism 
removes  from  this  passage  and  whatever  expressions 
we  may  modify  as  representing  one  of  the  tendencies 
of  the  early  church,  the  central  teaching,  in  all  its 
inexorableness,  originates  from  His  spiritual  vision. 
The  Jewish  imagery  must  not  distract  us  from  the 
thought,  which  is  this:  that  any  one  who  accepts  a 
separation  between  his  own  fortunes  and  the  condi- 
tion of  any  fellowman  sunders  himself  from  that 
unity  of  humanity  in  which  is  all  good,  and  outside 
of  which  there  is  nothing  but  desolateness  and  anguish. 
From  the  blessedness  and  compassionateness,  where 
those  who  have  had  least  and  have  suffered  most  are 
forever  comforted,  no  relief  can  traverse  the  great 
gulf  which  the  fortunate  have  accepted  between 
themselves  and  the  miserable.  This  is  the  inevitable 
law  of  eternal  loss,  incurred  by  voluntary  separation 
of  man  from  the  needs  of  his  fellowmen,  by  insensi- 
bihty  to  the  appealing  sorrow  of  the  least  of  our  breth- 
ren. 

This  social  interpretation  of  spiritual  failure,  this 
social  pronouncement  of  ultimate  doom,  flames  upon 
us,  the  moment  it  is  recognized,  from  every  word  and 
deed  of  Jesus.    No  less  clear  is  Jesus'  way  of  escape, 


3IO        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

which  is  ministry  to  "the  least," — the  least  regarded, 
the  poorest  endowed.  Only  as  all  the  wealth  of 
possession  and  knowledge,  of  joy  and  virtue,  is  opened 
to  hearts  most  remote  from  the  worths  of  life,  is  there 
the  filling  up  of  the  great  gulf,  the  uniting  of  a  man 
with  humanity.  Only  as  these  goods  are  poured  out 
to  those  from  whom  no  recompense  can  be  expected, 
and  we  offer  the  feast  of  life  to  the  poor,  the  lame, 
and  the  blind,  do  we  actually  unite  ourselves  with 
humanity.  Anything  short  of  this  Hmits  us  to  a 
class,  a  segment  separate  from  mankind.  Only  in 
devoted  ministry  to  "these  least"  are  we  one  with 
humanity  in  all  the  sorrows  and  strivings  and  common 
values,  whereby  we  accomplish  the  social,  the  univer- 
sal achievement  of  the  spiritual  task. 

From  the  doom,  the  eternal  loss,  of  those  who  do 
not  thus  minister,  our  modern  Hfe  must  be  called 
back.  And  the  social  passion  of  our  day  has  hidden 
within  it  responsiveness  to  this  warning  and  appeal. 
The  methods  by  which  this  salvation  is  to  be  wrought 
are  for  us  to  discern  in  the  conditions  that  now  con- 
front us,  and  are  to  be  found  largely  in  the  develop- 
ments of  our  Aryan  inheritance;  but  Jesus'  social 
reconstruction,  which  is  to  work  itself  out  in  every 
component  of  our  culture,  is  so  vast  that  every  other 
social  revolution  sinks  into  insignificance  beside  it 


SPIRITUALIZING  THE   SOCIAL  PASSION     311 

and  promises  amelioration  and  progress  only  when 
inspired  by  His  evangel  and  contained  in  it. 

This  fundamental  of  Jesus'  Gospel  goes  far  beyond 
our  awakening  demands  for  social  equity.  For  by 
His  principle  every  man,  every  institution,  every 
social  force,  pour  themselves  forth  first  of  all  to  the 
needs  of  those  whose  need  is  greatest.  It  is  indeed 
the  purpose  of  the  house-holder  that  all  his  laborers 
shall  be  paid  equally,  but  the  last  must  be  paid 
first.  In  the  ministry  which  is  primarily  to  the  last 
and  least,  justice  and  equity  find  their  essential 
nature  and  fulfill  their  implicit  purpose.  The  Hellenic 
social  ideal  learns  its  transcendent  aim.  Every  power 
of  civilization  rises  to  its  summit,  in  the  government 
and  the  industry  and  the  art  and  the  science  which 
dispense  unto  "these  least,"  through  rectified  con- 
ditions and  unrestricted  opportunities,  the  choicest 
goods,  of  broad  wisdom,  of  pure  intensity  of  joy, 
of  character  consummate  in  holiness,  of  the  raising 
of  every  man  to  his  share  of  the  infinite  task  of  the 
spiritual  self-realization  of  humanity.  This  inner  re- 
construction, all-comprehensive,  universal,  is  the 
implacable  issue  confronting  each  man,  and  most 
evidently  our  time.  Only  as  we  are  attuned  to  this 
purpose  of  Jesus  can  this  age  escape  inexpressible  dis- 
aster, and  each  man  escape  the  loss  of  his  own  soul. 


312         THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

The  unity  of  humanity  in  devotion  to  "these  least" 
opens  yet  more  radiant  heights  of  social  ideal,  pro- 
founder  depths  of  self-devotion.  We  are  social  men 
in  Jesus'  aggressive  realization  of  union  with  mankind, 
when  we  receive  His  redemptive  passion.  Beyond 
the  humblest,  whom  we  must  serve  as  He  served 
them,  are  evil  men,  perverse  characters,  the  lost,  whom 
we  must  save,  and  seek  in  the  dark  mountains  of  their 
wandering,  if  we  would  save  them.  To  win  even 
the  criminal  and  the  harlot  by  every  ingenuity  and 
untiring  passion  of  holy  love,  to  this  end  we  must 
set  our  lives  if  we  would  live  in  His  life;  and  this 
passion  must  fill  the  thought  and  heart  and  will  of  our 
civilization,  if  it  shall  be  worthy  of  the  title  which 
it  has  assumed  so  lightly,  the  name  of  Christian 
civilization.  Up  into  this  field,  preventing  and  winning 
back,  our  social  sciences  must  enter,  and  this  field 
is  the  whole  world  of  lost  humanity.  All  dealings 
of  an  illumined  Christian  state  with  peoples  degraded 
or  morally  undeveloped,  and  with  the  decadent  and 
intractable  elements  of  its  own  population,  must 
unite  with  the  confident  enthusiasm  which  sends 
His  ambassadors  into  desolate  regions  and  down  into 
the  lower  strata  of  society,  and  sweeps  into  self- 
denying  cooperations  every  heart  that  would  be  in 
His  holy  fellowship  of  universal  love.    Our  redemptive 


SPIRITUALIZING  THE  SOCIAL  PASSION     313 

passion  requires  His  clear  vision  of  sin,  as  He  beheld 
scribe  and  pharisee  sunk  in  a  spiritual  need  which  is 
not  less  than  that  of  renegade  and  prostitute.  Our 
redemptive  passion  sweeps  on  to  all  who  are  outside 
Jesus'  social  fellowship,  whether  they  are  in  dive  or 
palace,  in  pursuits  execrated  by  society  or  honored  by 
standards  which  are  not  those  of  His  social  salvation. 
These  redemptive  efforts  must  be  directed  upon  every 
lost  soul,  and  must  also  determine  the  whole  life- 
current  and  career  of  every  man,  and  the  direction 
and  energy  of  every  institution  and  of  the  entire 
social  organization. 

From  the  uniting  service  to  the  least  and  the  lost, 
there  opens  a  still  higher  social  ideal,  a  still  lowlier 
self-emptying.  The  intensity  of  Jesus'  emphasis  upon 
the  forgiveness  of  our  enemies  is  the  very  social  heart 
of  His  Gospel.  Our  union  with  humanity  is  incom- 
plete, that  is,  it  is  a  union  with  something  less  than 
humanity  and  therefore  false  to  itself,  if  it  cannot  pray, 
"Forgive  as  we  forgive." 

Jesus'  forgiveness,  as  He  read  it  in  His  Father's 
heart  and  opened  it  to  our  Hves,  is  not  limited  to  a 
remission  of  penalty  nor  to  a  forbearing  of  vengeance, 
but  is  the  purpose  to  unite  the  heart  of  the  offender 
with  the  heart  of  the  offended,  to  restore  to  the 
holy  fellowship  of  love  those  who  have  outraged  love. 


314        THE   CHRISTIAN   RECONSTRUCTION 

Because  it  must  be  a  holy  fellowship,  the  effort  of 
forgiveness  is  to  bring  contrition  into  the  soul  of  the 
injurer,  and  that  contrition  is  created  by  the  injured 
taking  the  sorrow  and  burden  of  the  sin  upon  his  own 
heart.  We  lead  hateful  men  back  to  love,  the  polluted 
to  holiness,  in  which  alone  love  can  dwell,  though  that 
endeavor  is  met  with  brutal  misconception  and  in- 
jurious affront. 

This  is  not  a  merely  individual  labor;  all  who  are  in 
Jesus'  social  fellowship  unite  in  this  restorative  for- 
giveness of  every  lost  soul.  As  long  as  one  man  is  in 
the  outer  darkness,  the  whole  redeemed  humanity 
unites  itself  for  the  salvation  of  that  one,  even  at  the 
cost,  to  each  loving  spirit,  of  Jesus '  agony  and  bloody 
sweat,  His  cross  and  passion.  And  though  the  action 
of  a  free  agent  cannot  be  predicted,  we  may  hope  and 
pray  that  the  heart  most  filled  with  lust  and  hate  shall 
open  itself  at  length  to  the  holy  love  of  Jesus  and  of 
those  to  whom  His  redemptive  grace  is  given  in  power, 
and  that  loving  humanity,  fulfilled  in  Him,  shall  see 
of  the  travail  of  its  soul  and  be  satisfied. 

This  united  effort  of  forgiveness  may  now  embrace 
every  social  institution  and  energy.  The  effort  of  a 
civilization  really  Christian  is  to  bring  back  to  its 
regenerated  life  civiHzation's  bitterest  foes,  in  high 
place  or  low  place.    The  purpose  of  justice,  divine  and 


SPIRITUALIZING  THE   SOCIAL   PASSION     315 

human,  is  to  forgive.  All  law,  all  statecraft,  all 
political,  industrial,  and  social  forces  direct  them- 
selves to  that  unity  of  heart  and  task  where  all  class 
hatreds  and  national  antagonisms  are  done  away,  and 
where  men  forgiving  one  another  are  indeed  one.  The 
sign  in  which  Christian  civilization  conquers  may  then 
in  very  truth  be  His  cross. 

For  the  knowledge  of  Jesus'  ideal  of  redeemed 
character,  we  turn  our  reverent,  aspiring  gaze  to  Him, 
the  social  man,  in  whom  is  the  social  God.  Jesus  is 
so  penetratively  one  with  all  human  needs,  that  every 
ministry  of  ours  to  the  hunger,  the  thirst,  the  naked- 
ness, the  loneliness,  the  sickness,  the  oppression,  of 
His  brethren,  "even  these  least,"  is  done  unto  Him. 
His  mission  is  to  seek  and  to  save  that  which  is  lost. 
In  that  mission  which  flows  from  the  all-forgiving, 
all-reconciling  love  of  the  Father's  heart.  He  set  His 
face  steadfastly  to  Jerusalem,  where  He  was  to  be 
crucified.  Surely  it  is  only  in  His  power  that  we 
can  undertake  the  task  so  transcendent,  the  world- 
conquest  of  such  spiritual  victory  as  His  life  lays  upon 
us.  That  power  grows  in  the  uniting  of  our  inmost 
life  with  Him,  who  is  the  one  sufficient  Saviour  of 
every  man,  the  central  force  of  redeemed  humanity, 
the  presence  and  energy  of  the  all-holy  and  all-loving 
Father. 


3i6        THE   CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 

Jesus'  world-transcending  task  and  overcoming  is 
the  consummation  of  the  social  passion,  that  all-con- 
suming flame  of  every  man  who  really  lives  the  life 
of  our  day,  in  which  the  modern  age  finds  itself.  In 
our  unwearying  devotion  to  man  and  men  we  must 
serve  nothing  less  than  their  spiritual  potencies,  which 
are  their  very  being.  The  social  passion,  in  Jesus' 
consummation  of  it,  burns  away  everything  but  tliis 
purpose.  And  for  such  social  ministry  we  can  be 
sufl&cient  only  in  the  deep  and  holy  and  sacrificial,  the 
all-pervading,  all-spiritualizing  faith  and  fellowship 
unspeakable  of  the  Son  of  God. 


INDEX 


Abraham,  6i,  151,  157 

in  Jewish  theology,  234 
Achaemenidas,  164 
Ahaz,  relation  to  prophetism,  149 
Ahriman,  165,  169  flf. 
Albigenses,  181 
Allah,    transcendence    of,    129, 

130,  158 

Amos,  universalism  of,  151 

Anarchy,  aspirations  of,  59 

Antichrist,  257 

Aphrodite,     alien     to     Roman 
religion,  172 

Apocalypse  of  John,  its  material- 
izations, 276 

Apocalyptic,  Jewish,  155,  156 
in  thought  of  Jesus,  162,  254- 
260,  272-276 

Apollo,  nature    transformed  by 
art,  29 
alien  to  Roman  religion,  172 

Aramaean  descent  of  Jesus,  127 

Arcadia,   Greek  superstition  in, 

39 
Aristotle,     his     supreme     good 

Hellenic,  30 
Arnold,  Matthew,  conception  of 

barbarism,  26 
Artaphernes,    type    of    modern 

plutocracy,  50 


Art: 
Hellenic,  31,32,  43 
democratization  of,  47 
Babylonian,  131,  135 
Romantic,  178 
as  consummating  nature,  205 
Semitic  transformation  of,  205, 
206 
Aryan.    See  Hellenic  genius 
Asshur,  both  nation  and  deity,  15 
Assyria: 

relation  to  Babylonia,  132 
opposing      Semitic      develop- 
ments, 134 
prophetic  misapprehension  of, 
149 
Athens,  source  of  culture,  5,  21 
Aufklasrung.        See     Enlighten- 
ment 


B 


Baal-worship,  relation  to  Jahveh, 

146 
Babylon,  unfulfilled  prophecy  of 

return  from,  150 
Babylonia,  131  ff,  164,  172 
its   culture   and   religion    un- 
differentiated, 19 
its  myths  in  Christianity,  172 
Babylonian  hymns,  139 
Barbarism,  modern,  26,  44-57 


317 


3i8 


INDEX 


Barbizon  school,  262 

Bergson,  author's  obligation  to, 
preface,  vii 

Browning,  quoted,  no,  212 

Buddhism: 

cultural  ineffectiveness  of,  15 
influence  on  Occident,  70 
distinction  from  Semitic  spirit, 

116 
universal  sympathy,  205 
in  Indian  pessimism,  211,  212 


Caesar,  representing  exploitation, 

171 
Cain,    representing   civilization, 

170 
Calvinism,  183 
Canaanites,  religion  and  culture, 

19 
influence  on  Israel,  145-146 
Celt,  element  of  our  civilization, 
175,  176 
implicit  Semitism  of,  209,  211 
Chaucer,  joyousness  of,  263 
Childhood,  exploitations  of.    See 

Industrial  slavery 
China,  relation  to  Christianity, 
II 
capacity  for  Hellenism,  130 
Christian    apologetic,    weakness 

of,  180-183,  284,  285 
Christianity,  Semitic  nature  of. 
See  Jesus,  and  Semitic  genius 
Church,  not  organized  by  Jesus, 
10,  II,  158 
its  ecclesiasticisms,  11,  182 


relation  to  Jewish  leaders,  158 
various  historic  influences  of, 
1S1-183 

Classicism,  conflict  with  Roman- 
ticism, 177 

Creeds,  as  departures  from 
Christianity,  7,  85,  221,  222, 
227,  228,  285 

Criticism,  New  Testament,  9, 
63,  64,  82 

D 

David,  not  author  of  Psalms,  171 
Dionysos  Zagraios,  39 
"Divine  right,"  301 


E 


Egypt,  139,  140,  142 

Elijah,  place  in  prophecy,  144, 

146,  147 
Enlightenment  (Aufklaerung) ,  80 
"Essential    Christ,    The,"    85, 

100,  282 
Eucken,  author's    obligation  to, 

preface,  vii 
Euphrates,  influence  on  culture, 

131, 132 
Evolution,  116-119 
of  humanity,  127,  128 
Jesus'  place  in,  83,  226,  227, 

232,  233,  239,  240 


Faust  (Goethe's)  as  Gothic,  37, 

177 


INDEX 


319 


Forgiveness: 

as  constitutive  of  humanity, 

313-315 
See  also  Jesus'  Teachings 
Fourth  Gospel: 

its  appreciation  of  Jesus,  10 
characteristics,  91,  232 
quotations  and  references,  89, 

93,  95.  262,  264,  269,  273, 

274,  27s,  307,  316 


Galilee,    our    spiritual    descent 
from,  5,  21 

Genesis,  Book  of,  quoted,  2,  17 

Genevan  theocracy,  74 

"Genius  of  our  civilization,"  123 

Germany,     relation     to     Chris- 
tianity, II 

Gibeonite,    in    university    pro- 
fessorships, 52 

Gilgamesh,  epic  of,  134,  139 

Gnosticism,   in  development  of 
Christianity,  7 

God: 

Hellenic  conceptions  of,  15,  21, 
29,  68-70,  76,  77,  100,  123, 
124,  144 
Semitic  conceptions  of,  18,  62, 
132,  133,  137.  138,  140-156, 
192,  195-198,  207,  208,  213, 
271,  277,  278,  283-288 
Jesus'  conception  of,  34, 62,  63, 
87,  93,  94,  160,  161,  179, 
218-220,  224,  226,  229,  231, 
233.  235,  243,  244,  247,  248, 
250,  251,  252,  258,  261,  266- 
269,  273-275,  313 


in  Jesus,  86,  100,  loi,  249,  250, 

283,  286-288,  307 
and  world,  112,  113,  114,  120- 

124,  262,  263,  284,  285 
Iranian    conception    of,    165, 

168,  170,  171,  208 
Roman    conception    of,    172, 

173,  209 
Romanticism's  conception  of, 

177,  178,  209 
Goethe,  his  union  of  Gothic  and 

Hellenic,  36,  177 
quoted,  200 
Gothic  element  in  our  civiliza- 
tion, 176,  177 
implicit  Semitism  of,  209,  211 

H 

Hebrews,  Epistle  to,  quoted,  221, 

249 
Hebrews,  Gospel  of,  229,  230 
Hegel,  popular  ignorance  of,  35 
his   judgment   of   Babylonian 

civilization,  135 
quoted,  122 
Helena,  in  Goethe's  Faust,  36, 

177 
Hellenic    genius     versus    Chris- 
tianity: 
source  of  our  civilization,  3, 

passim 
quality  of,  28-37 
modernization  of,  38-57 
in  science,  39-43,  62-64 
in  social  interests,  43-57,  185- 

187 
democratic  nature  of,  34,  35, 
47-57,  59 


320 


INDEX 


in  popular  education,  49 
in  higher  education,  51-55 
universal  range  of,  60-62 
ethic  of,  64-66 
in  philosophy,  66  and  passim 
religious  consciousness  of,  67- 
73.  75.  76,  96-99,  102,  123, 
124 
defined    as    world-appropriat- 
ing,   107,    and    world-com- 
pleting, 109 
soul  and  world  in,  114,  115 
humanity  and  world  in,  116- 

119 
soul  and  God  in,  120-124 
Babylonian  elements  in,  131, 

133 
distinction   from   Babylonian, 

134-137 
Iranian  genius  in,  1 63-1 71 
Roman  genius  in,  1 71-175 
Celtic  genius  in,  175,  176 
Gothic  genius  in,  176 
Indian  genius  in,  211,  212 
Romanticism  in,  176-179 
historic  independence  of  Chris- 
tianity, 179-183 
would     appropriate     Semitic 

genius,  184 
transcended  and  transformed 
by  Jesus,  185-213,  277-290, 
291-307,  315.  316 
Hephaistos,  169 
Herakles,  34 
Hezekiah,      his      statesmanship 

against  prophetism,  149 
Holtzmann,      Heinrich      Julius, 
author's       obligation       to, 
preface,  vii 


Homer,  ancient  popularity  of,  34 
Hosea,  144 

Hugo,  Victor,  178,  quoted,  178 
Humanity,  conception  of,  96-100 
See  also  Social  passion 


"Ideal  Christ,  The,"  85,  90,  100, 

282 
"Imitation  of  Christ,  The,"  220 
Incarnation.    See  Jesus 
India: 
impassiveness    to    Hellenism, 

130, 131 
opposite    of    Semitic    genius, 

144,  145 
Aryan  genius  of,  211,  212 
Individualism,  modern  outbreak 

of,  299,  300 
Iranian  genius: 
place  in  our  civilization,  163- 

171 
implicit  Semitism  of,  209,  211 
Isaiah: 

lack  of  statesmanship,  149 
prophecy  unfulfilled,  150 
Ishtar,  132-133 
Islam.    See  Mohammedanism 
Israel,   in   struggle  against  the 
world,  207 
See  also  Semitic  genius 
Italy,  relation  to  Christianity,  11 


Jahveh: 

original  conception  of,  140  ff 
transformation  of  conception, 
142  ff 


INDEX 


321 


Japan: 

relation  to  Christianity,  11 

capacity  for  Hellenism,  130 
Jehovah.    See  Jahveh 
Jeremiah,  144,  171 
Jerusalem,  171 
Jesus,  as  distinctively  Semitic: 

separateness  from  Aryan  civil- 
ization, 4,  9,  10, 162-184 

identification  with  Christian- 
ity, 76 

historic  knowledge  of  possible, 

77-83 

historic  relation  to  men's  inner 
hfe,  83-96 

critical  reconstruction  of  life 
of,  82 

divinity  of,  86,  286-288,  316 

orthodox  misrepresentations 
of,  84,  85 

inclusiveness  of,  87,  88 

immediate  experience  of,  93  ff 

central  energy  of  humanity, 
96-102,  239,  240,  249,  250, 
307,  308,  314,  316,  passim 

as  Saviour,  vid  super 

relation  to  common  life,  102- 
104,  263-265 

uncertainty  of  Hebrew  de- 
scent, 127 

recognition  in  modern  Ju- 
daism, 158 

consummation  of  Semitic 
genius,  159-161 

nationalism  of,  160,  265-267 

legalism  of,  161,  162,  243-245 

eschatological  expectations  of, 
162,  254-260,  272-276 

misconception  of  historic  in- 


fluence of,  179-183 
social  genius  of,  186,  248,  249, 

266-272,  277-316 
misconception  of  social  aims 

of,  186,  187 
task  of,  185-277 
prayers  of,  197,  198,  220,  228, 

235,  246,  251,  252,  261,  269, 

278,  283,  285,  286 
limitations  and  inconsistencies 

essential  to,  loi,  102,  214 
limitations  as  teacher,  216-218 
limitations    of    religious    con- 
sciousness, 218-220 
ethical  limitations  of,  64,  65, 

221,  222 
as  example,  220,  221 
holiness  of,  22S-238 
conviction  of  sin  by,  223-226 
natural  birth  of,  227,  228 
healings  by,  259,  260 
parables  of,  265,  309,  310 
transcendent    world-conquest 

of,  185,  277,  316 
as   Saviour   of   other   worlds, 

281-283,  c/.,  96-102 
transcendent     fulfillment     of 

Hellenism,     185-214,     291- 

296 
incarnation.    Sec  God  in  Jesus 
death  of,  as  redemptive  power, 

275,  276,  2S6-288,  314-316 
resurrection  of,  275,  276 
salvation  by  faith  in,  307,  308 
Jesus'  teachings: 

inconsistencies     of,     216-220, 

242 
as  unfoldings  of  His  own  inner 

life,  242  ff 


322 


INDEX 


sin.  Sec  Jesus,  conviction  of 
sin  by 

faithfulness  to  Old  Testament, 
244  and  passim 

of  repentance,  242-253 

of  God.  See  God,  Jesus'  con- 
ception of 

of  legalistic  requirements,  244- 
246 

of  conversion,  246 

of  faith,  218,  219,  246-253, 
cf-  307,  308 

of  grace,  247 

of  divine  fatherhood,  247  ff, 
and  passim 

of  universal  salvation,  248,  249 

of  consecration,  250-251 

of  childlikeness,  251-252 

of  dependence  on   God,   252, 

253 
of     transcendent     world-con- 
quest, 253  and  passim 
of  Kingdom  of  God,  253-276 
Jewish  eschatology  in,  254-260 
of  Kingdom  of  Satan,  254 
demonology  in,  258-260,  262 
implicit  spirituality  of  God's 

kingdom  in,  260  ff 
kingdom  realized  in,  261-262 
of  nature,  63,  262,  263 
of  natural  manhood,  263-265 
of  patriotism,  265-267 
of  cosmopolitanism,  266-268 
of  spiritual  humanity,  268,  269 
of     human     brotherhood     in 

divine  sonship,  268,  269 
social  ethic  of,  269-270 
social  passion  of ,  270-272,  291- 
316 


messianic     consciousness     m, 

272  ff 
of  Son  of  God,  272-274 
of  Son  of  Man,  274-276 
of  personality  socially  fulfilled, 

296-308 
in  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  302- 

307 
of  personal  immortality,  242, 

253,  258,  259,  261,  269,  270, 

271,  272,  274,  275,    cf.  96- 

100 
of  eternal  loss,  242,  243,  307- 

31S 
of  prayer.    See  Jesus 
Jew,  the  modern,  157,  158 
John,  Epistle  of,  quoted,  207,  307 
John,    Gospel   of.      See   Fourth 

Gospel 
Judaism,  151-157 

K 

Kant: 

popular  ignorance  of,  35 

relation     to     Hellenism     and 
Romanticism,  36,  37 

Semitic  and  Iranian  qualities 
of,  169 
a  Kempis,  220 
Keats: 

Hellenic  genius  of,  175 

Celtic  genius  of,  1 76 

quoted,  175,  176 


Lamia  (of  Keats),  175 
Latmos,   in   Keats'   Endymion, 
175 


INDEX 


323 


Leibnitz,  quoted,  201 

Lessing,  service  to  Hellenism,  36 

Leviticus,  Book  of,  quoted,  138, 

153 

"Living  Christ,  The,"  90 

Logos,  85,  282 

Lot,  61 

Luke,  Gospel  of,  quoted,  213, 
221,  228,  229,  231,  232,  233, 
234,  242,  243,  244,  24s,  247, 
248,  250,  251,  252,  253,  254, 
25s,  256,  257,  258,  259,  260, 
261,  262,  263,  264,  265,  266, 
267,  268,  269,  270,  271,  272, 
273,  274,  27s,  276,  308,  309, 
310,  311,  312,  313,  314,  315 

Lutheranism,  183 


M 

/ 

Macedonian  Empire,  129,  164 

Maeterlinck,  94 

Malayan  capacity  for  Hellenism, 
127 

Marathon,  50 

Marcus  Aurelius,  5 

Mark,  Gospel  of.  Quotations 
and  references,  228,  229, 
232,  234,  242,  248,  250,  251, 
252,  253,  254,  255,  256,  257, 
258,  259,  260,  261,  262,  263, 
264,  265,  266,  267,  268,  269, 
270,  271,  272,  273,  274,  275, 
276,  308,  310,311,  312,313, 

314, 31S 
Matthew,  Gospel  of,  quotations 
and  references,  63,  123,  155, 
228,  229,  232,  233,  234,  242, 


243,  244,  245,  246,  248,  250, 
251,  252,  253,  254,  255,  256, 
257,  258,  259,  260,  261,  262, 
263,  264,  265,  266,  267,  268, 
269,  270,  271,  272,  273,  274, 
275>  276,  303,  304,  308,  310, 
311,  312,313,  314,  315 
Messiah,  234-237,  273-276 
Middle      Ages,      influence      of 

Church  in,  181 
Militarism,  14,  15,  181,  304  ff 
Missions,  Christian,  17,  18 
Mithra-cult,  164 
Mohammed,  129 
Mohammedanism : 

as  civilization  and  religion,  15 
Semitic  genius  in,  129 
influence    upon    Aryan    and 

Semitic  peoples,  130 
nature  of,  158-159 
exploitations  of,  181 
Mongofian  capacity  for  Hellen- 
ism, 127 
Moses,  142-144 
Muses,  43 
Music,   its   Celtic,    Gothic   and 

Roman  elements,  176 
Mysticism: 
unhellenic,  30 
Christian,  85,  90-95 

N 

Nature,  spiritual  transformation 

of,  263 
Nebuchadnezzar,  171 
New  England  theocracy,  74 
Negro  capacity   for  Hellenism, 

127 


324 


INDEX 


"Non-resistance,"  303-306 
"Novum  Organmn,"  42,  43 


O 


Olympian     gods,     as     cultural 

ideals,  45 
Oread,    as    nature    imperfectly 

humanized,  38 
Ormazd,  169 
Orpheus,  72 


Paran.    See  Sinai 
Parthenon,  39 
Paul,  St.: 

rehgious  experience,  248 
divergencies  from  Jesus,  249, 

264,  282,  307 
quotations  and  references,  126, 
207,  270,  276 
Pericles,  39 

Persia,  as  connoting  barbarism, 
44  ff,  163,  164 
See  also  Iranian  genius 
Personality: 

See  Spiritual  life 
Pessimism,  211,  212 
Pharisees,  Jesus'  graciousness  to, 
102 
legalism  of,  243-246 
Phenicia  in  Babylonian  culture, 

19,  136,  137 
Phidias,  39 
Phihstine,  connoting  barbarism, 

26 


Philistinism  in  public  education, 

49 
Philosophy: 

theological  perversions  of,  30 
Hellenic  limitations  of,  32,  ^^ 
Hellenic  humanism,  41 
ethic,  in  Hellenism  and  Sem- 

itism,  64-66 
safeguarding  of,  against  Chris- 
tianity, 66 
of  religion,  66-68,  122 
refutation  of    religion  of  au- 
thority, 75-77 
of  history,  78-81,  92,  96-101 
conception    of    universal    hu- 
manity, 96-100 
fundamental     definitions     of, 

how  formed,  1 13-124 
Iranian  influence  upon,   168- 

170 
of  soul,  188  ff 
Semitic  developments  of,  277- 

281 
See    also    God,    Pragmatism, 
Spiritual  hfe 
Plato: 

Popularity  in  antiquity,  35 
relation    to    Kantian    revolu- 
tion, 36,  37 
normal  use  of,  39 
unrecognized  influence  of,  56 
Hellenic  limitations  of,  69 
abuse  of,  in  modern  theology, 
167 
Plato's  Academy,  54 
Plotinus: 

opposition  to  Christianity,  5 

essential  Hellenism  of,  30,  69 

Political  institutions.    See  Rome 


INDEX 


325 


Poseidon,  modern  sacrifice  to,  39 
Pragmatism,  preface,  vii,  166 

cf.  also  Chapters  I  and  IV  of 

Part  Second,  and  pp.  278- 

281 
Prayer.    See  Jesus 
Prometheus.    See  Shelley 
Property,  provisional  rights  of, 

301,  302 
Prophets  of  Israel,  147-152 
Psalms,  Book  of,  151 

quoted,  63,  151 
Publicans,  Jesus'  graciousness  to, 

102 
Puritanism: 
Iranian  element  in,  167 
Defects  of,  181 

R 

Renaissance,  44,  55-57,  182,  289 
Roman  emperors,  apotheosis  of, 

173 
Roman  Empire: 

Christian  misinterpretation  of 

its  history,  129,  189 
Fall  due  to  economic  causes, 
182 
Rome: 

significance  in  our  civilization, 

171-175,  209 
implicit  Semitism  of,  301 
Romanticism,  36,  176-178 
Russell,  John  Edward,  author's 
obligation  to,  preface,  vii 


Sacraments,    not    intended    by 
Jesus,  9 


Samaria,  not  included  in  Jesus' 

mission,  256 
Satan,    Kingdom   of,    165,    179, 

180,  254,  260,  263 
Semitic   genius   in    contrast    to 
Hellenic: 
defined  as  world-transcending, 

107 
and  world-destroying,  no,  in 
world  and  soul  in,  115,  116 
world  and  humanity  in,  n  9, 1 20 
world  and  God  in,  124  ff 
history  of,  1 25-161 
Babylonian    contribution    to, 

131-139 
Egyptian  relation  to,  139-140 
reahzation  in  Israel,  140-146 
development  in  prophecy,  146- 

151 
development  in  psalmists,  150, 

151 
political  limitation  of,  151,  153 
legalism  of,  153-15S 
eschatological  expectations  of, 

155,  156 

modern  non-christian  develop- 
ments of,  157,  158 

Mohammedan    variation    of, 

158,  159 
Jesus'  consummation  of,  159- 
161.    See  also  Jesus 
Sennacherib,  149 
Shakespeare: 

general  unfamiliarity  with,  34 
quoted,  95 
Shelley,  72,  263 
Sin.      See    under    Jesus,     and 

Jesus'  teachings 
Sinai,  legends  of,  19,140, 146,147 


326 


INDEX 


Sirens,  symbolizing  faith,  72 
Slavery,  industrial,  48,  49,   50, 

180,  292-297 
Slavs,  responsiveness  to  Hellen- 
ism, 129 
Socialism,  298  ff 
"Social  eudemonism,"  299-300 
Social  passion,  preface,  vii 
as  chief  characteristic  of  our 
time,  3,  185,  187,  289,  290 
Hellenic  source  of,  34,  35,  43- 

57 

its   conception    of   humanity, 
96-104,  1 16-120 

in  prophets  of  Israel,  148 

in  Iranian  genius,  171 

in  Romanticism,  178 

in  Semitic  genius,  213 

in    Jesus,  186,  243,  263-265, 
270-272,  291-316 
Solidaric  vs.  social,  297  ff 
Spiritual  life: 

conceived  as  task,  190 

intimations  of,  190,  191 

as     transcendent     world-con- 
quest, 191  ff 

real  only  as  realizing  itself,  193 

the   opposing   world  essential 
to,  193  ff 

diflSculties  of  its  self-realiza- 
tion, 19s 

its  humility,  195,  196 

humanity  of,  196, 197, 198, 199 

in  God,  197,  198 

disclosed  by  impermanence  of 
the  world,  199,  200 

relation  to  time,  200,  201 

its  repudiation  of  theodicies, 
201,  202,  204 


its    transformations    of  pain, 

202-204 
its  transformations  of  pleasure, 

204-206 
its  universal  transformations, 

207,  208 
its  transformation  of  Hellenic 

genius,  208,  210 
its  transformation  of  Iranian 

genius,  208 
its  transformation  of  Roman 

genius,  209 
its    transformation    of    Celtic 

and  Gothic  genius,  209 
and  romanticism,  209 
its  relation  to  Indian  genius, 

211,  212 
its  relation  to  common  toils, 

212 
its    realization    of    humanity, 

213 
See  also  Semitic   genius,  a7td 

Jesus 
Stephen,  St.,  63 
Simerian,  132 
Swinburne,  quoted,  arraigmnent 

of  ecclesiasticism,  182 
Syncretism,  irrational,  67 
Synoptic,  Gospels,  historic  value 

and  limitation,  179,  180 
Syria,  136,  137,  149 


Tennyson,  quoted,  200,  207 
Terpsichore,  see  Muses 
Teutonic  elements  in  civilization, 
dependence    on    Roman    in- 
fluence, 174 


INDEX 


327 


Theodicy,  201  £f,  284 
Theologies.    See  Creeds 
"These  least,"  311-313 
Tigris: 

influence     upon     civilization, 

131,  132 

Tissaphernes,  54 

Trinity,  Nicene,  85 

Triton,  representing  nature  im- 
perfectly humanized,  38 

Tyre,  nonfulfillment  of  prophecy 
concerning,  149 

U 

University,  barbarism  in,  51-54 
Urania.    See  Muses 


V 

Venus.    See  Aphrodite 
Vulcan.    See  Hephaistos 

W 

Whittier,  quoted,  77,  91 


Winckelmann,    his    recovery   of 

Hellenism,  36 
Womanhood,     exploitation     of. 

See  Industrial  slavery 
World: 

difficulty  of  conception,  113 
as  Opponent  of  spirit,  113,  114 
in  conception  of  soul,  115,  116 
in    conception    of    humanity, 

I 16-120 
in  conception  of  God,  120  ff 
as  within  self,  190 
irrationahty  of,  201  flF 
World-appropriation.     See  Hel- 
lenic genius 
World-conquest.        See     Jesus, 
Hellenic      genius,      Semitic 
genius 
World-transcendence.    See  Sem- 
itic genius,  Jesus 


Zarathustra,  165 

Zeus,  29 

Zoroaster.    See  Zarathustra 


'  I  "'HE  following  pages  contain  advertisements  of  a 
few  of  the  Macmillan  books  on  kindred  subjects. 


The  Problem  of  Christianity 

IN  TWO  VOLUMES 

By  JosiAH  RoYCE,  LL.D.,  Litt.  D. 

Professor  of  the  History  of  Philosophy,  Harvard  University;  Author 
of  "OutUnes  of  Psychology,"  "The  Philosophy  of  Loyalty," 
"William  James,"  etc. 

Vol.  I.    The  Christian  Doctrine  of  Life. 

Vol.  II.  The  Real  World  and  the  Christian  Ideas. 

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A  work  of  great  importance  to  all  students  of  religion  and  philoso- 
phy and  to  the  general  reader  who  keeps  abreast  with  progress  in  these 
fields  is  Dr.  Josiah  Royce's  "The  Problem  of  Christianity,"  in  two 
volumes,  the  first,  "The  Christian  Doctrine  of  Life,"  and,  the  second, 
"The  Real  World  and  the  Christian  Ideas." 

Volume  I  is  a  study  of  the  human  and  empirical  aspects  of  some  of 
the  leading  ideas  of  Christianity;  Volume  II  deals  with  the  technically 
metaphysical  problems  to  which  these  ideas  give  rise.  The  two  vol- 
umes are  contrasted  in  their  methods,  the  first  discussing  religious 
experience,  the  second  dealing  with  its  metaphysical  foundations. 
They  are,  however,  closely  connected  in  their  purposes,  and  at  the 
end  the  relations  between  the  metaphysical  and  the  empirical  aspects 
of  the  whole  undertaking  are  reviewed. 

The  "Christian  Ideas"  which  Dr.  Royce  treats  as  "leading  and 
essential"  are,  first,  the  Idea  of  the  "Community,"  historically 
represented  by  the  Church;  second,  the  Idea  of  the  "Lost  State  of 
the  Natural  Man,"  and  the  third,  the  Idea  of  "Atonement,"  to- 
gether with  the  somewhat  more  general  Idea  of  "Saving  Grace." 

"These  three,"  Dr.  Royce  says,  "have  a  close  relation  to  a  doctrine 
of  life  which,  duly  generalized,  can  be,  at  least  in  part,  studied  as  a 
purely  human  'philosophy  of  loyalty'  and  can  be  estimated  in  em- 
pirical terms  apart  from  any  use  of  technical  dogmas  and  apart  from 
any  metaphysical  opinion.  .  .  .  Nevertheless  no  purely  empirical 
study  of  the  Christian  doctrine  of  life  can,  by  itself,  sufiice  to  answer 
our  main  questions.  It  is  indeed  necessary  to  consider  the  basis  in 
human  nature  which  the  religion  of  loyalty  possesses  and  to  portray 
the  relation  of  this  religion  to  the  social  experience  of  mankind.  To 
this  task  the  first  part  of  these  lectures  is  confined,  but  such  a  pre- 
liminary study  sends  us  beyond  itself. 

The  second  part  of  these  lectures  considers  the  neglected  phil- 
osophical problem  of  the  sense  in  which  the  community  and  its  Spirit 
are  realities."  

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Social  Idealism  and  the  Changing  Theology 

A  Study  of  the  Ethical  Aspects  of  Christian  Doctrine 

The  Nathaniel  William  Taylor  Lectures  for  191 2.    Delivered  before 
the  Yale  Divinity  School 

By  Gerald  Birney  Smith 

Associate  Professor  of  Christian  Theology  in  the  Divinity  School  of 

the  University  of  Chicago 

Cloth,  i2mo,  $1.25  net;  postpaid,  $1.37 

"It  has  for  some  time  seemed  to  me,"  says  Gerald  Birney  Smith, 
in  the  preface  to  his  new  book,  "that  theological  scholarship  isin 
danger  of  pursuing  a  course  which  might  end  in  a  somewhat  exclusive 
intellectualism.  As  the  progress  of  Biblical  criticism  has  compelled 
us  to  reconstruct  our  conception  of  the  way  in  which  the  Bible  is  to 
be  used,  the  appeal  to  the  Bible,  which  to  Luther  seemed  so  simple 
and  democratic  a  matter,  has  become  hedged  in  with  considerations 
of  critical  scholarship  difficult  for  those  who  are  not  specialists  to 
comprehend.  While  theologians  have  been  giving  attention  to  the 
problems  created  by  this  phase  of  scholarship  the  movements  of  life 
in  our  day  have  brought  to  the  front  aspects  of  the  social  question 
sadly  needing  the  guidance  and  the  control  which  can  be  supplied 
only  by  an  ethical  religion.  The  utterances  of  theology,  in  so  far  as  it 
has  followed  traditional  paths,  have  been  somewhat  remote  from  these 
pressing  moral  questions  of  social  justice." 

Professor  Smith  then  says  that  the  aristocratic  conception  of  social 
guidance  is  gradually  giving  way  to  a  democratic  conception,  and  goes 
on  to  show  how  and  why  this  change  from  aristocratic  to  democratic 
ideals  has  taken  place,  indicating  wherein  an  understanding  of  the 
significance  of  this  ethical  evolution  may  aid  in  the  reconstruction  of 
theology. 

The  author  believes  when  this  is  clearly  apprehended  by  theo- 
logians and  ministers  the  reconstruction  of  religious  beliefs  may  be 
more  closely  related  to  the  great  problems  of  social  ethics,  now  loom- 
ing so  large  and  needing  the  help  which  a  positive  religious  faith  can 
supply. 

The  work  is  divided  into  five  sections,  considering  in  turn  ecclesi- 
astical ethics  and  authoritative  theology,  the  discrediting  of  ecclesi- 
astical ethics,  the  moral  challenge  of  the  modern  world,  the  ethical 
basis  of  religious  assurance  and  the  ethical  transformation  of  theology. 

"Dr.  Smith's  book  should  interest  all  those  who  are  broad  enough 
to  realize  that  as  the  world  advances,  theological  religion  must  also 
advance." — Pittsburgh  Post. 


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Christianizing  the  Social  Order 

By  Walter  Rauschenbusch 

Professor  of  Church  History  ia  Rochester  Theological  Seminary 

Author  of  "Christianity  and  the  Social  Crisis" 

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Supplements  the  powerful  message  of  "Christianity  and  the  Social 
Crisis"  as  a  study  of  present-day  problems  written  with  even  greater 
insight  and  appeal. 

Christianity  and  the  Social  Crisis 

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"It  is  of  the  sort  to  make  its  readers  feel  that  the  book  was  bravely 
written  to  free  an  honest  man's  heart;  that  conscientious  scholarship 
and  hard  thinking  have  wrought  it  out  and  enriched  it;  that  it  is 
written  in  a  clear,  incisive  style;  that  stern  passion  and  gentle  senti- 
ment stir  at  times  among  the  words,  and  keen  wit  and  grim  humor 
flash  here  and  there  in  the  turn  of  a  sentence.  It  is  a  book  to  like,  to 
learn  from,  and,  though  the  theme  be  sad  and  serious,  to  be  charmed 
with." — N.  Y.  Times  Sunday  Review  of  Books. 

Social  Religion 

By  Scott  Nearing 
Author  of  "Woman  and  Social  Progress,"  "Social  Adjustment,"  etc. 

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There  is  probably  no  more  popular  writer  on  present-day  social 
problems  than  the  professor  in  the  Wharton  School  of  the  University 
of  Pennsylvania.  Dr.  Nearing  has  a  way  of  expressing  his  statements 
that  makes  an  irresistible  appeal  to  the  general  reader,  and  the  interest 
once  gained  is  held  by  the  importance  and  absolute  authoritativeness 
of  the  facts  which  he  presents.  In  his  new  book  he  takes  up  the  more 
deplorable  elements  in  the  modern  social  and  industrial  world,  analyz- 
ing them  in  the  light  of  a  practical  Christianity.  The  church-going 
public,  the  non-church  goers  and  those  who  are  openly  opposed  to  the 
methods  of  the  church  of  to-day  should  all  find  this  book  equally 
interesting,  and  no  matter  what  the  opinion  of  the  reader  may  be  he 
will  be  forced  to  admit  the  truth  of  the  author's  argument.  Dr.  Near- 
ing's  final  presentation  of  a  religion  that  is  really  social,  a  religion  the 
function  of  which  is  "to  abolish  ignorance  and  graft  and  to  provide 
for  normal  manhood  and  adjusted  life  toward  which  society  may 
strive"  is  particularly  suggestive. 


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The  Church  and  the  Labor  Conflict 

By  Parley  Paul  Womer 

Author  of  "Relation  of  Healing  to  Law,"  "A  Valid  Religion  for  the 

Times,"  "The  Coming  Creed" 

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To  supply  concreteness  to  the  discussion  of  the  social  mission  of  the 
church  is  Parley  Paul  Womer's  purpose  in  The  Church  and  the  Labor 
Conflict.  Dr.  Womer  believes  that  in  dealing  with  the  relationship 
of  Christianity  to  industry  there  has  been  too  much  generalization, 
a  lack  of  deiiniteness  and  a  failure  to  grapple  the  fundamental  facts 
of  our  contemporary  social  and  economic  developments.  Accordingly 
he  does  not  approach  his  subject  by  the  usual  theorizing,  but  im- 
mediately gets  down  to  the  essentials— to  the  conditions  which  have 
brought  about  the  present  state  of  affairs  and  their  causes.  "While 
the  Christ  of  the  churches  is  scorned  and  rejected,"  he  says,  "the 
Nazarene  carpenter  is  enthusiastically  lauded  as  a  labor  leader  and 
revolutionist,  a  man  of  the  common  people  who  fought  hard  for  their 
moral  and  economic  welfare,  to  intents  and  purposes  the  first  socialist. 
Because  the  church  is  untrue  to  the  ideals  of  the  Nazarene,  say  these 
spokesmen  of  the  wage-earners,  it  is  looked  upon  with  suspicion  and 
hostility.  The  church  is  repudiated  not  because  it  is  Christian,  but 
precisely  because  it  is  not  Christian."  Accepting  this  as  a  statement 
of  fact,  what  should  the  church  do  to  regain  its  influence?  What 
should  be  its  attitude  to  labor  and  capital,  and  this  attitude  once 
defined,  what  will  be  the  final  effect  not  only  upon  the  church,  but 
upon  humanity  at  large?  These  are  some  of  the  all-absorbing  ques- 
tions to  which  the  author  devotes  himself. 

"The  author  outlines  very  clearly  the  social  mission  of  the  church 
in  overcoming  many  of  the  ills  of  society  in  its  present  state  of  unrest 
and  forecasts  the  new  church  and  its  future  work." — Boston  Globe. 


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